] 74 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, June 10, 1857. 
THE AQUARIUM. 
As the aquarium has become a household institution 
many of our readers may be glad to read the following 
instructions as to its management, which we collect from 
a lecture recently delivered at the Royal Institution by 
Mr. Warington. 
Water.fresh and marine .'-—The water used for the aquarium 
| should be clean, and taken direct from a river, or from a 
i soft spring, and should not have been purified by means of 
lime. As regards sea water, it should, if possible, be taken 
at a distance from the shore, and at the period of high 
water. If artificial sea water is employed it should be 
made either from the saline matter obtained by the evapo¬ 
ration of sea water, or by the following formula:—Sulphate 
of magnesia, 71 ozs.; sulphate of lime, 2£ozs.; chloride of 
sodium, 43^ ozs.; chloride of magnesium, 6 ozs.; chloride of 
potassium, 11 oz.; bromide of magnesium, 21 grains; car¬ 
bonate of lime, 21 grains. These quantities will make ten 
gallons. The specific gravity of sea water averages about 
TO35; and when from evaporation it reaches above this 
a little rain or distilled should be added, to restore it to the 
original density. 
Vegetation .—The plants best fitted for fresh water are the 
Vallisneria spiralis , the Myriophyllum, Ceratophyllum, and 
the Anacharis, all of them submersed plants, and fulfilling 
the purposes required most admirably. Erom the great 
supply of food in the aquarium the growth of the Vallisneria 
is very rapid, and it requires, therefore, to be thinned by 
weeding. This should never be done until late in the spring, 
and on no account in the autumn, as it leaves the tank with 
a weakened vegetation at the very time that its healthy 
functions are most required. The vegetation of the ocean is 
of a totally different character and composition, being very 
rich in nitrogenous constituents. There are three distinct 
coloured growths—the brown or olive, the green, and the 
red. For the purposes of the aquarium, where shallow 
water subjects are to be kept, the best variety is the green, 
as the Ulvae, the Enteromorpha, Yaucheriae, Cladophora, Ac. 
These should be in a healthy state, and attached to rock or 
shingle when introduced. We shall have occasion to notice 
the Rhodosperms under the head of Light. 
Scavengers .—A most important element in establishing 
and maintaining the permanent balance between the animal 
and vegetable life, without which no healthy functions can 
be secured, and the aquarium must become a continued 
source of trouble, annoyance, and expense. The mollusc 
which was first employed, the Limnea stagnalis, was found 
to be so voracious as it increased in size, that it had to be 
replaced by smaller varieties of limnese, by planorbis, and 
other species of fresh-water snail. The number of these 
should be adjusted to the quantity of work they are required 
to perform. In the marine aquarium the common peri¬ 
winkle fulfils the required duties most efficiently, and is 
generally pretty active in his movements. The varieties of 
trochus are also most admirable scavengers ; but it must be 
borne in mind that they are accustomed to a mild temperature, 
and will not live long in a tank liable to much exposure to cold. 
The Nassa reticulata not only feeds on the decaying matters 
exposed on the surface of the rockwork and shingle, but 
burrows below the sand and pebbles with the long proboscis 
erected in a vertical position, like the trunk of the elephant 
when crossing a river. But in the ocean there are in¬ 
numerable scavengers of a totally differing class, as the 
annelids, chitons, starfish, nudibranch molluscs, Ac., thus 
affording a most beautiful provision for the removal of 
decaying animal matter, and converting it into food for both 
fish and man. 
Light— It is most probable that the greater amount of 
failures with the aquarium have arisen from the want of a 
proper adjustment of this most important agent, the 
tendency being generally to afford as much sun’s light as 
possible; but on consideration it will befound that this is 
an erroneous impression. When the rays of light strike the 
glassy surface of the water the greater part of them are 
reflected, and those which permeate are refracted and 
twisted in various directions by the currents of the water, 
and where the depth is considerable it would be few rays 
which would penetrate to the bottom; but let the surface 
j become ruffled by the passing wind, and it is little light 
that can be transmitted, and when this same disturbing 
cause lashes into waves and foam not a ray can pass, and 
all below must be dark as night. Too much light should j 
therefore be avoided, and the direct action of the sun 
prevented by means of blinds, stipling, or the like. It is a 
great desideratum to preserve the growth of the lovely red 
Algse in all their natural beauty, and prevent their being j 
covered with a parasitic growth of green or brown-coloured 
plants ; this can be effected by modifying the light which 
illuminates the aquarium by the intervention of a blue 
medium, either of stained glass, of tinted varnish, coloured 
blinds, Ac. The tint should be that of the deep sea, a blue 
free from pink, and having a tendency rather to a green hue. 
This modified light affects also the health of those creatures j 
which are confined to shallow waters, so that a selection of 
the inhabitants must be made. 
Heat .—The proper control of this agent is also most 
material to the well-being of these tanks, for experience 
has proved that an increase or diminution of temperature 
beyond certain limits acts most fatally on many of the 
creatures usually kept. These limits appear to be from 45 
degrees to 7 5 degrees Fahrenheit. The mean temperature 
of the ocean is estimated to be about 56 degrees ; and this 
does not vary more than 12 degrees throughout the varying , 
seasons of the year, showing the extreme limits to be from 
44 degrees to 68 degrees. Great care should therefore be i 
taken to afford as much protection as possible, by the ar¬ 
rangement of the rockwork, both from the sun’s rays by day i 
and the effects of radiation at night, as from the small 
volume of water contained in the aquarium these effects 
are rapidly produced. 
Food .—As many persons, to whom those interested in 
these matters have naturally looked for instruction, have 
decried the idea of feeding, it will be necessary to offer a 
few remarks on that point. How creatures so voracious as 
most of the denizens of the water are, both fresh and 
marine, are to thrive without food, is a question it would be 
difficult to solve; common sense would say they must 
gradually decrease in size, and ultimately die from starva¬ 
tion. The food employed should be in accordance with 
the habits of the fish, Ac. For the vegetable and mud 
feeders, vermicelli, crushed small, with now and then a 
little animal food, as worms, small shreds of meat, rasped 
boiled liver, and the like. For the marine creatures, raw 
meat, dried in the sun and moistened when used, answers ; 
very well. Oyster, muscle, cockle, raw fish, shrimps, and the j 
like matters may be employed; these should be cut or pulled 
into very small pieces, and never more given than they can | 
at once appropriate, and if rejected by one it should be 
transferred to another, or removed from the tank. In the 
case of actinia, they require, from their fixed position, that ; 
the food should be guided to their tentacles; and if the 
animal food, of whatever kind, is soaked in a little water, 
and the water thus impregnated with animal fluids be 
dropped in moderate quantity into the tank, it will afford 
food for the small entomostraclia and smaller creatures 
with which the water abounds, and which constitute the 
food for many of them.— Atheiueum. 
NEW BOOK. 
The Marine Aquarium.* —The taste for aquariums seems 
unabated, and the better they are known the more extended 
will the taste become. There is no doubt that the facility 
with which they are managed, and the plain instructions con¬ 
tained in some excellent manuals on the subject, have had 
much to do with the popularity which they have acquired. 
Though not among the earliest in the field, this little treatise 
of Mr. Stark’s has not come too late, and we hail it all the 
more, apart from its thoroughly clear and practical directions, 
because we know it to be the production of one who holds a 
respectable position in science, and who has devoted the 
greater part of his life to the study of these subjects. We 
cordially recommend this little book to all who wish to know 
how to manage the marine aquarium. 
* The Marine Aquarium , Directions for its Preparation and Manage¬ 
ment. By R. M. Stark. 
