The 101 Best Aquarium Plants makes aquascaping and keeping healthy aquatic plants simple by providing clear, expert advice and recommendations that greatly improve the hobbyist's chances of success.

Written by an experienced aquarium hobbyist, this title features must-know buying, fertilization, and keeping tips, plus easy-to-use keys to sizes and care requirements. The book is organized for instant look-up, with color-coding to highlight species that will fit into aquarium systems of different sizes. The brilliant full-color identifying photos make this guide simple to use and a pleasure to browse for aquascaping inspiration.

A Field Guide to Beautiful Freshwater Aquarium Species

• Expert Advice on Selecting Great Plants for Your Home Aquarium

• Easy-to-Use Keys to Sizes and Ease of Keeping

• Must-know Care & Fertilization Tips

• 33 Species to Avoid

• Fully Illustrated

Excerpt

The practice of adding live plants to aquariums can be traced back many generations. Early fish keepers had to make do without most of the equipment we have today, and they knew the value of including live plants to sweeten the water and provide a source of food and comfort for their fish. When you’re keeping a few small fish in a bowl, plants are helpful even if you make daily water changes.

Without air pumps, filters, lights, or heaters, early aquarists were quite successful relying upon a wholly natural and low-tech methods of maintaining their fishes. The aquarium was lightly stocked with fish, usually one or two small cold-water species, and planted with whatever aquatic plants happened to be available locally. Partial water changes were the order of the day, but on the whole these simple, small “biotopes” were as fascinating to their owners back then as the high-tech aquariums are to modern fish keepers today.