AQUARIUM. 



55 



that it was impossible to separate these that it might be found later that hul- 

 new minerals from the magnetite pres- site and paigeite have the same corn- 

 en t at the time of the first analysis position. 



Under the Auspices of The Aquarium Society of Philadelphia, Herman T. Wolf, Editor 



Sand, Soil, Grit or Pebbles? 



Considerable discussion has been 

 evoked at meetings of the Aquarium 

 Society of Philadelphia by the import- 

 ant query, "What is the best planting 

 medium in the freshwater aquarium, 

 sand, soil, grit or pebbles?" At first 

 a divergence of opinion was expressed 

 but later experimentation led to an 

 almost unanimous concurrence in what 

 was since adopted as the best practice. 



Some desirable aquatic plants, sag- 

 ittaria, vallisneria, anacharis, cabomba 

 and nitella will thrive and exhibit paler 

 green leaves when set directly in the 

 sand ; but other plants, ludwigia, pot- 

 amogeton, moneywort and water-pop- 

 py, require soil to continue their 

 growth and to survive under the 

 changed conditions. 



The best practice, it has been found, 

 is to place a two to two and a half 

 inch layer of thoroughly washed bar 

 or beach sand in the aquarium, into 

 which shallow dishes or pots contain- 

 ing clean turf and the last mentioned 

 plants are arranged, then those to be 

 planted directly in the sand introduced, 

 and the whole surface covered with 

 a half-inch layer of small beach pebbles, 

 known as grit. A few larger pebbles or 

 brookworn stones may be scattered 

 over the surface to produce a natural 

 effect. 



For the marine aquarium mixed sand 

 and grit is preferable, as it offers the 

 best medium in which some of the 

 animals may follow their natural habit 

 of burrowing and hiding. 



Grit permits the finer particles of 

 humus to sift through to the sand 

 layer, to serve as nourishment for the 

 plants, presents a neat and tidy sur- 

 face appearance, and a firmer layer for 

 the siphoning of the excess accumul- 

 ations. _ 



Nonsense Writing about Aquaria. 



The longer or shorter articles of 

 popular scientific nature which from 

 time to time appear in newspapers are 

 often unreliable, but those concerning 

 the aquarium and its inmates are us- 

 ually even worse, either altogether 

 untruthful, absurdly impossible, or 

 misleading and disastrous when believ- 

 ed in and applied, all due to faulty ob- 

 servations or the writing on a subject 

 with which the writers are not conver- 

 sant. 



It is probably the gentle lady society 

 reporter, the sporting editor, or the 

 space writer momentarily devoid of a 

 theme that produce these often gro- 

 tesque absurdities that may do much 

 unintentional harm. 



The editor of this section of The 

 Guide; to Nature would be greatly 

 obliged if the readers would send in 

 clippings of this nature, stating in 

 what paper they were published, so 

 that they may be answered, correc- 

 tions made and the ghost of ignorance 

 laid. It is to be regretted, however, 

 that newspapers seldom publish cor- 

 rections of their printed articles. 



It is proposed here to publish ex- 

 tracts from such articles to correct 



