Availability of Fish/Aquarium magazines in Singapore?

[spgan]

Hi folks, i'm thinking of subscribing fish magazines (freshwater aquarium)for easy reading. Any recommendations on a good one? I saw one at Holland Village magazine store with title Aquarium Fish International but cost slightly more than a red notes. Any idea if they comes in free internet Adobe PDF copies for the previous issues?

[budak]

Try Practical Fishkeeping. Very up to date and with frequent coverage of Asian fauna. Go to their website to see sample articles. Registering gives you more benefits.

Circa $10 seems a decent price for an international hobbyist magazine to me though.

[benny]

I believe most aquarium magazines cost between S$11.50 to S$17.00. The only titles we see here are..

Tropical Fish Hobbyist (USA)
Tropical Fish (UK)
Practical Fish Keeping (UK)
Australian Aquarium Magazine (Australia)
Aquarium Fish International (USA)

There is another one or two titles which I've forgotten the name.

Chinese language magazines from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan seems to be out of circulation nowaways. I used to enjoy two titles specifically.

Aquapets (Taiwan)
Aquazoo (Taiwan)

You can still send them in from Taiwan if you have friends there.

Then, at Kinokuniya book shops, you can get the Japanese magazines. These are 2 of the better ones.

Aqualife (Japan)
Fish Magazine (Japan)

Besides Practical Fish Keeping, none of the other magazines offer free articles online or as a PDF. The best bet is to go to shops like Biotope Aquarium to browse their old reference copies. If you are a very regular customer, Mr. Thio may even consider lending you a few copies.

Cheers,

[spgan]

Thanks guys, that was very good information! Am sure this will benefit newbies getting hook to aquariums and thus finding them useful. Besides keeping an aquarium, the next interesting thing is aqua photography which is amazingly nature beauty.

I have checked out on Aquarium Fish International (12 issues) which does international shipping at USD$32.99 - (International surface delivery). Have wrote in to check on the lead time for surface delivery to Singapore. Will post when I have a reply from them.

[valice]

Generally, through subscriptions, you will always get the copies earlier than the news stands. I am subscribed to TFH, and I received my March issue before CNY.

For the deliveries, they generally have a local agent who will send it to you.

For ADA Aqua Journal, the magazines are sent directly from Japan.

[Ah_ZhaN]

I also enjoy reading Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazines, but I don't subscribe to them, I browse them through for free at certain book stores in town.

[Quixotic]

Personally, I prefer UK publications than the US ones. I find that the fauna coverage on Practical Fishkeeping (PFK) is generally more interesting, as Asian/African fauna is frequently covered.

[valice]

I personally subscribed to TFH due to the Amano columns. A pity that PFK doesn't have a strong plant column. They are more inclined to the fauna coverage.

[Quixotic]

Yeap yeap, it would be good if new subscribers can browse through some of the publications first to align their interests.

[Cacatuoides]

Which bookstore has a wider selection of the above magazines to browse through?

[Justikanz]

A friend's copy of Practical Fish Keeping (PFK) re-introduced me to fish keeping after a long hiatus, then I graduated to Tropical Fish Hobbyist (TFH) as they seem to cover more indepth into the articles and also I realised that articles in PFK was quite UK based...

However, I like PFK more for the 'feel' and the pictures. I will buy only these 2 magazines as others are just not as good... Unless they have special articles... I now have a huge collection of old TFH and PFK magazines... Maybe I can do a database of articles and then donate the entire collection to a Fish Library...

Other than these 2 magazines, some quite good magazines to recommend include Taiwan's AquaZoo News and AquaPets and Japan's AquaJournal. For CRS, there's the Red Bee Shrimp Magazines...

[benny]

Which bookstore has a wider selection of the above magazines to browse through?

I think Books Kinokuniya should have all the magazines mentioned above except the Chinese ones.

Cheers,

[Justikanz]

Oops, forgot to mention. The English magazines can be easily found at Kino, Times and MPH. Big magazine stalls usually will also carry TFH and PKF.

The Chinese ones can be found in some LFSes. Polyart and NA will have them. Think C328 occassionally has some Chinese magazines too... The Japanese ones can be found at NA.

[Ah_ZhaN]

Which bookstore has a wider selection of the above magazines to browse through?

Not too sure about other magazines, but I usually browse TFH at Times and MPH bookstores. As for Kinokuniya, most of the time their books and magazines are sealed up so... ...go at your own risks.

[spgan]

I have checked out on Aquarium Fish International (12 issues) which does international shipping at USD$32.99 - (International surface delivery). Have wrote in to check on the lead time for surface delivery to Singapore. Will post when I have a reply from them.

Here's the reply from Aquarium Fish International:

The first issue generally reaches international subscribers within six
to eight weeks. Issues should thereafter arrive no later than the 15th
of the cover month of the issue you would be inquiring about. For
example, the May issue should be to international subscribers no later
than May 15th.

I will give it a shot on this subscription and will also check out the other recommended ones. Thanks folks.

[benny]

I would suggest you check out this magazine at the local newsstand first. The depth and the scope may not be what you are looking for.

Cheers,

[Ah_ZhaN]

Forgot to mention: the BORDERS bookstore at Wheelock Place also has a large magazine section for you to browse through. I remembered browsing through 1-2 issues of TFH magazine.

regards,
zhan

[soulfinder78]

Bought a magazine call aquarium, it's all in chinese but they provide a lot of articles. 1 thing i dislike about these magazine is there's alot of product review and advertisement.

Will we break the copyright law if we starts sharing articles in these magazines? like using their pictures, etc. if not will it be a good idea to have a sub forum discussing and sharing of interesting articles from these magazines?

[benny]

Discussion of magazine articles is not an issue. Reproducing the article and their images may be an infringement of copyright laws. Writing an abstract of the article is not a violation of the copyright laws. Hope that helps.

Cheers,