AQUARIUM 



67 



the parents. Only about fifty eggs are 

 spawned at a time but they spawn 

 every few weeks. Owing to their di- 

 minutive size for the first few weeks it 

 is no easy matter to raise these fish, 

 but to succeed is well worth while. It 

 is my hope to eventually have enough 

 to stock an aquarium with males only. 



Besides being a beautiful and an in- 

 teresting fish the dwarf gourami is a 

 very useful inhabitant of any ordinary 

 aquarium. It acts as a scavenger, rids 

 the aquarium of the unsightly red 

 worms that so frequently infest the 

 bottom and which goldfish will not 

 touch, and it adds variety to the in- 

 mates of the aquarium. Another point 

 of merit is that it will eat any kind 

 of food. I would recommend anybody 

 to have one or two in every aquarium 

 where the temperature does not at any 

 time go below sixty degrees. I would 

 prefer not having the water cooler than 

 sixty-five degrees. This recommen- 

 dation, however, is not immediately 

 practicable as the fish probably cannot 

 be had commercially for at least a year. 

 The last quotation I heard on them was 

 ten dollars per pair. This variety 

 should not be confounded with the 

 larger sort of gouramis. The large 

 ones, although said by certain pet store 

 proprietors to be harmless to goldfish, 

 have been found by experience to be 

 quite the contrary. On the other hand 

 the dwarf variety is absolutely peace- 

 able and will not harm a goldfish as 

 small as half an inch long. I found the 

 fishes to be very timid when in an 

 aquarium by themselves, and inclined 

 to be wild. Since I have had them in 

 with gold fish they appear to be thor- 

 oughly domesticated and beg for food 

 as freely as the gold fish do. 



The Paradise fish, although hand- 

 some and interesting, has lost its pop- 

 ularity on account of its belligerent dis- 

 position. The dwarf gourami is more 

 interesting, more beautiful and quite as 

 useful as a scavenger and is postively 

 safe to place with goldfish. 



An aquarium is practical for any 

 home, and of never failing interest. If 

 intelligently cared for it is verv beau- 

 tiful. 



An Unbalanced Aquarium. 



For several years I have been ex- 

 perimenting with balanced aquaria; 

 that is, with some glass receptacle 

 containing water and just the proper 

 proportion of vegetable and animal life 

 to be mutually helpful. If the balanc- 

 ing be carefully done, there is pro- 

 duced "a little world in water" that 

 will remain in good condition for 

 months or even for years without a 

 change of water or of other contents. 

 One such balanced aquarium has 

 proved almost phenomenally success- 

 ful, its plants and animals having 

 thrived and flourished for almost five 

 years. 



But another with which I recently 

 experimented proved a decided failure 

 from the aquarium point of view, for 

 it was decidedly unbalanced. In a 

 single night every plant disappeared. 

 The animal life was far too thrifty. 



The aquaria stands in a corner of 

 my greenhouse on a support under the 

 main shelf. Below this secondary 

 shelf is a deep tank, six feet long by 

 four feet wide, made of galvanized 

 sheet iron and sunk in the floor. 

 This is usually kept filled with water 

 and serves as a home for various frogs 

 and turtles. 



The chief of these, a sort of "mon- 

 arch of all he surveys," is a snap- 

 ping turtle that makes most of my 

 young visitors say "Oh, my ! Isn't he a 

 big one !" As a matter of actual meas- 

 urement he is about eight inches across 

 his shell and 18 inches in length from 

 tip of nose to tip of tail. His wis- 

 dom in comparison with that of the 

 smaller turtles is in proportion to his 

 size. 



Late in the afternoon I left the drain 

 plug out as I intended to clean the 

 tank and to fill it with fresh water 

 the next day. The big fellow did not 

 intend to remain for even a night 

 without being in water all over, and 

 furthermore he likes a feast of aquatic 

 plants for, as you probably know, the 

 snapping turtle eats vegetable as well 

 as animal food. That evening we 

 found him in one of the small aquaria 

 which he almost filled. It seemed as- 

 tonishing that in his travels he hadn't 

 broken the glass, yet he had not, but 



