(back cover) This book focuses on developing a system using natural rock and sand as the foundation for a sustainable reef aquarium. Detailed step-by-step guidance throughout. Features more than 400 photos and illustrations.

(back cover) The latest scientific discoveries and aquarium techniques for keeping and propagating living corals Plus information on keeping Sponges Echinoderms Mollusks Crustaceans Fishes and advice on eliminating diseases and parasites in a marine aquarium

Using live rock and live coral sand as part of a natural filtration system, the home aquarist can now mimic habitats such as a Florida Keys Lagoon, a Caribbean Turtle Grass Flat, an indo-Pacific Deep Cave, or a Red Sea Patch Reef. With more than 100 full-color photographs and illustrations, this volume provides inspiration for both beginning and expert marine reef hobbyists.

" ... Portraits of 50 world-class marine aquariums, along with priceless advice on how they were planned and how they are kept healthy and vibrant"--Page 4 of cover.

Keeping live corals has been likened to "bonsai for the cousteau generation" and "the ultimate underwater gardening experience." Beautiful, bizarre, and among nature's most colorful creations, living corals are now being successfully kept and grown in tens of thousands of home saltwater aquariums. For the first time, master aquarist Eric Borneman offers an authoritative, comprehensive, and fully illustrated guide to appropriate aquarium species, including a diversity of soft corals, as well as popular and rare large-polyp and small-polyp stony corals. World-class photographs and text reviewed by leading coral biologists and coral keepers guides the reader through the selection and husbandry of hundreds of species.