portant, those commonly sold in stores are 

 too rough and often injure fish, bobinet 

 makes a good soft material for this use. 

 The net should always be used slowly and 

 carefully, as many beautiful tails, fins and 

 even eyes are injured by careless handling 

 of the net. Scissors are useful to trim 

 plants and it is much better to cut than to 

 break or tear them. Thermometers are al- 

 most a necessity, in order to regulate the 

 temperature of the water, especially when 

 transferring fish from one receptacle to 

 another. Fine fish should not suffer a sud- 

 den change of more than four or five 

 degrees. 



In closing I wish to emphasize two 

 points : Be clean, sterilize everything pos- 

 sible. Disinfect all plants and animals 

 before adding them to the aquarium, and 

 even then, if possible, use a quarantine for 

 a week or ten days on new inmates. Sec- 

 ond, Get all conditions as near nature as 

 possible and you may expect success. 



Feeding Aquarium Plants 



(Concludkd) 



S. Chichester Lloyd 

 Brooklyn, N.Y. 



I washed all the plants and emptied 

 every tank of its gravel. The gravel I 

 boiled in big washboilers — about half a ton 

 of it. I also decided to never again under- 

 take such a big job all at once if I could 

 help it. I next bought a lot of shallow 

 fern dishes of red pottery, about two and 

 and a half inches deep, some deeper, and 

 about five inches across the top. Into 

 these, after giving them a thoro soaking 

 over night, I put a piece of broken jjot 

 over the hole in the bottom, and then a thin 

 layer of gravel, on top of which I spread 

 a full (not heaping) teaspoonful of dry 

 pulverized sheep manure, then filling to 

 the top with boiled gravel. Into these pots 

 I inserted my plants as closly as possible 

 avoiding crowding. These pots I placed as 

 closely together as each aquarium would 

 hold, and scattered a thin layer of gravel 



over the Hoor of the tanks, so that the fish 

 could not empty the pots. Now here is 

 the point for the wise aquarist who wants 

 healthy fish and beautiful growth of plants : 

 In three weeks after the re-planting, the 

 glass of the aquariums exposed to the sun- 

 light had a magnificent growth, over an inch 

 long, of beautiful green alga?. Tanks without 

 a vestige of sunlight ever reaching them did 

 the same in a slightly longer period, while 

 the pots themselvs were covered with this 

 long moss, the red color entirely hidden. 

 The floating anacharis had thrown down 

 a perfect forest of white roots and the tanks 

 are today in an ideal condition and the fish 

 apparently never in better health. Even 

 the Japanese Snails are growing moss on 

 their backs, and the Sagittaria is sending 

 shoots from one pot to root in the next. 



Each week I pour into each tank a half 

 glass of the water from a tablespoonful 

 of sheep manure dissolved in a quart jar 

 of water, every third week I omit it. I can- 

 not reeomend this too highly for anybody 

 who wants algae, and oxygen. For raising 

 daphnia it cannot be exceld. A tub of 

 water with some anacharis, a couple of 

 quarts of sheep manure water and about 

 a glass of daphnia will be alive with daph- 

 nia in ten days. The excess of algae on the 

 front glass of aquaria can be rubbed off 

 with cotton or a piece of rough toweling 

 on an old toothbrush attached to a long 

 handle. 



I regard sheep manure as stimulating 

 and nourishing for both plant, insect and 

 fish life, and find that I am no longer 

 troubld with black soil or decayed roots. 

 Once a month I siphon off the refuse on 

 the bottom of the tanks and replace with 

 fresh water, if I happen to have the time. 

 I have tried soil and all kinds of sand and 

 mixtures, but soil from ponds frequently 

 contains leeches and garden soil generates 

 too much gas. I am very much pleasd with 

 the results of the use of sheep manure, and 

 if my experience may be of help to any 

 fellow members I shall be glad to hear of it. 



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