I published The Beginner’s Guide to Marine Aquariums in 1996 and then wrote and illustrated a few books for Tropical Fish Hobbyist Publications. These were Hard Corals (1999), Soft Corals (2000), Getting into Mini-Reefs (2001), and The Super-Simple Guide to Corals (2004). All of these are woefully outdated and out of print now, but copies can still be found online. Regardless, my interests shifted more toward giant clams, and my next three books have all been about them.
Giant Clams in the Reef Aquarium
I published Giant Clams in the Reef Aquarium in 2019, which was written and photo-illustrated specifically for reef aquarists wanting to learn about giant clam biology and how to care for them. Then, over the next few years, enough stuff happened in the world of clams for me to overhaul it and put out a second edition in 2023. It includes information on the biology of giant clams, detailed information about the common species, how to choose and purchase the best specimens, how to care for them in aquariums, how to deal with problems that may arise, and more.
While working on the update of Giant Clams in the Reef Aquarium, I decided to put pretty much everything I know about giant clams into another book that would not be specifically for aquarists. So, I wrote The Giant Clams, which is for anyone interested in the topic. It includes detailed information on the biology of giant clams, the common and uncommon species, the problems they face, how they’re aquacultured, and much more. It also features over 500 photographs and illustrations.
Giant Clams in the Sea and the Aquarium
This was the first one, published in 2006, which covered most all of what I could find about giant clams at the time. I’d gathered information from hundreds of research papers and magazine articles about them (at the time, there was only one other book about them, originally published in German ten years earlier) and boiled it all down into an easy-to-read book that was primarily for aquarists. Much of the information in it is also outdated now, especially the taxonomy, and it is out of print, but copies can still be found online by any interested collectors. I also converted it to an eBook, which is on Amazon, for anyone who wants to see how much our knowledge of these animals has changed since then.
By the way, I’ve also posted numerous underwater videos of giant clams, as well as a series of videos about identification that shows viewers how to positively identify them at the species level. These can be found on my Giant Clams are Awesome! YouTube channel.
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