An apologetic reevaluation of Richter's book.

[ancientaquarist]

Recently I allowed my general dislike of TFH publishers to lead to a dismissive "slip of the SEND" by saying less then laudatory things about
Hans-Joachim Richter's Complete Book of Dwarf Cichlids. Z-man recommended "fishlit" as a source for Romer's Atlas but Herr Schale has not replied. Romer's ATLAS is the last title I need to complete my dwarf cichlid library.

Today I had an opportunity to start really reading Richter's book and so far I am wildly enthusiastic about his lead in essays. I would put it high on the list of fish books I've read so far along with the Discus book by
Giovanetti which is amazingly sophisticated and imaginative.

By the way it is said I have a horticultural library larger than any private collection in California-here's a secret (I've read them all) the best garden book of our era is The Complete Shade Gardener by George
Schenk.

So Herr Richter Verzeihen Sie, bitte. It's really a superb book written from a lot of experience with these amazing fish and the finest photography imaginable.

Now everyone, help-I MUST HAVE Romer's Atlas-Banrnes & Noble is out of stock, am.com never heard of it, ditto Border's and, and, plus, etc.

 

[Neil]

Michael,
Yes, I like Richter's book too, however, it does suffer somewhat from being dated. But it is the only "Dwarf Cichlid" book that acknowledges the wider spectrum of types of Dwarf Cichlids.

As far as Romer's book, check your PMs. I have one for you.

Neil

 

[apistodave]

Did you get your book?--Richter is way out of favor in Germany since the re-unie--it's why he hasnt done anything new

 

[petroby]

G'day, I have found the new book by Mayland & Bork to be a great reference book on Dwarf Cichlids. I'd like to hear your impressions on this one.

 

[Mike Wise]

When I give talks on dwarf cichlids I recommend 3 books:

Römer's Cichlid Atlas - best bang for the buck by a long shot. It has more information than you will possibly ever need. It isn't perfect, however. Several species are misidentified (A. brevis, A. juruensis, A. maciliensis, A. personata among others) and several species include more than one species in them. This can sometimes make identifications difficult & inaccurate. By and large the good far outweighs to bad.

Glaser & Glaser's Southamerican Cichlids II (Aqualog book) - For the money it has lots of pictures & is regularly updated with supplimental pages. The down side is that the identifications can't be trusted. I imagine between 10-20% of the photos are misidentified. In addition there is very little written information. It is best used as a mug book. The way to use this book is to find the photo that most closely matches your fish, then use the code numbers to ask someone who knows what it really is.

Koslowski's Die Buntbarsche Amerikas Bd 2: Apistogramma & Co. - This book undoubtedly is the best book to use to identify apistos. It describes just under 200 different species/forms & explains how they differ from each other. It also contains collecting information from most of the people who actually collected the fish. On the down side, the photos tend to be dark & it is published only in German (I'm working on that right now).