Fish encyclopedia, dictionary, chart?...?

Blackwater

Can anyone here lead me to a web site or book the will have a photo of most of your tropical aquarium fish to find something with the statics of the fish, origin and so on.

The-Wolf

the best on the net is the Swedish institute of ichthyology
http://fishbase.org/search.php

herefishy

TFH also has their fish atlas. Updates are available. My original book is over 20 years old. With all of the update packages, it is second to none. There is also a mini atlas that is not as thorough but still a fine reference.

While http://fishbase.org/search.php is a good site, it is rather hard to navigate. Sometimes all you have is the fish in your tank to use as identification. It's kind of hard to get both your computer and your aquarium close enough together to id your fish. The books are much easier.

Blackwater

Herefishy, Im going to have to say I strongly disagree with the fish tank computer thing youre talking about. Thank you both and Herefishy..You have a book that you have written?
I kind of made my desk a tank stand LOL. What would be better then working or surfing the web and to have your tank right there! lol Eventually I plan on building a stand behind the desk but leaving a inch or so of the front of the tank resting on the back side of the desk.

Blackwater

WOW you arent lying! I have no idea where to even start on fishbase........

The-Wolf

fishbase is easy to search
you can search by common name or even part of common name
just change the dropdown box that says contains to begins with, ends with or is. so if you are looking for a fish that has pike in its common name
you can search fo pik (contains), [b]pi[/i] (begins with), [b]ke[/i] (ends with) or pike (is)
some searches will result in large lists being generated

the best way to search is by genus, putting boita in the genus search and changing the dropdown box to contains will generate a list of every fish that contains botia in the genus, including chromobotia, gobiobotia etc

more specialist searches can be done too, say you wish to find all fish found in lake victoria, use the search area called Information by Ecosystem
click the drop down box and find lake victoria, then check the box marked all fish.

once you've played around on it, you have hours of 'fun' finding stuff out about your fav fish

herefishy

Fishbase is good IF you have a common name or genus. What happens if all you have is a picture or an actual fish? You kind of up the creek then. (no pun intended).

The-Wolf

but surly by looking at the fish you'd know it was either a cyprinid or a characine or not.
if you have no idea at all that is where places such as this become invaluable

Blackwater

lol no pun A?