Sunken Gardens: A Step-by-Step Guide to Planting Freshwater Aquariums Paperback – Illustrated, February 14, 2017

It would be great to have this book updated, particularly lighting and CO2 systems. That said, this is probably the best of the introductions to planted aquariums. A bit light on low tech tank maintenance, it is still a very well organized and accessable book for beginners with planted tanks.

I have kept a aquarium since about age 12. I always wanted fish AND live plants. I used grow lights, "flourotabs" I believe. Some form of liquid iron. I managed to get a few sword type plants to survive. A pet store employee told me once that you cannot keep fish and live plants, "it just can't be done".The tanks in this book are LUSH. I read one review complaining about a CO2 generator. There are simple designs to build your own using yeast. It is counterintuitive to me to add CO2 to a tank with fish in it - it seems that they should live in equilibrium - but I believe this is the one most important thing I learned from this book.VERY thorough from where the plants originate, types of water needed, amount of light needed, sooooo many beautiful pictures. Updated as far as LED lights, so must have been written fairly recently.I won't use everything in this book, but I know that it has expanded my knowledge exponentially of how to keep a planted aquarium living and I am very excited about putting what I learned to use.Definitely buy this book if you want to grow live plants in your aquarium and can't. As the title suggests, the book focuses on plants in the aquarium, but is also addresses fish and their interaction with the plants and each other, etc.

I own quite a few books on aquariums and live plants and like to refer to them often. This is a new one, a beautiful one with lots of color photos and information, Highly recommend it for its contents.

If you are interested in having an aquarium filled with beautiful plants, fish, etc. you can learn all that you need to know from this one book. There are several pretty good books available on this topic, but none more up to date, nor more comprehensive. The planted aquarium hobby is new enough that there is still a lot of basic information that changes every few years, so you are more likely to get accurate information from newer books than from older ones.This book shows you what many of the aquatic plants you see in aquariums look like in their natural water settings, where they grow naturally, and how they look in an aquarium. It also describes the categories of tropical fish that are most likely to do well in those aquariums, and some that are unlikely to do well. It explains how to set up the aquarium so it has the necessary light, "sand", fertilizers, and water quality for good plant growth. There are enough big, beautiful photos of well designed "aquascapes" to help you design your own, to look like you want it to.This is a virtual encyclopedia on the subject of planted aquariums, sure to be helpful for any hobbyist from the beginner to the casual hobbyist, to the experienced hobbyist. I'm sure I will be reading this many times.

Bought for my husband who was very happy with this book. The following is his review:"Sunken Gardens, by Karen Randall - Finally! something new to add to my fish and plants bookshelf. I asked Ms.Randall personally if it will come out in Kindle as shipping cost would cost quite a lot coming from Amazon US; I was told it will not be in electronic form at the moment - which , now that I have the book, should never happen because this book is a keeper and most enjoyable in print! I have Kindle books on the Aquarium hobby and some without pictures are better in that form. I am going through the book jumping pages in random, it has a lot of pictures which makes it pleasurable to read. I like that it covers a broad range of topics from beginner to advance, nothing too deep nor too shallow. Im glad that it did not come out as an academic nor too technical a book - that would have been boring. For the aquascaping hobby, this book is a must have , it was written by a fellow hobbyist and true hands-on expert who is well respected in the field and is willing to share her knowledge and experience . "

This book has consise, helpful information and advice from someone who presents it in a very unbiased manner. If you can only get one book on aquatic plants, get this one!

Very easy to read and wealth of material

If you are looking to create or maintain a high tech (CO2 injected, high light, fertilized) tank, this book will help. If you're looking to create a low tech tank or dirted tank, move on. It's fine to exlude these options, but it would've been great if it had been clear from the description that that was the case. Reading this one gets the impression that low tech tanks aren't worth the time or effort.