Gum Ball Fish bowl.

[chopinrockwood]

My girls wanted a new fish bowl. I had an old gum ball machine hanging around. A siliconed plexiglass bottom and a little led light on top and everyone's happy. I will post more pictures after we acquire our fish.

 

[Scottyhorse]

How do you filter and heat that? Not suitable for fish IMO.

 

[jwh0818]

My girls wanted a new fish bowl. I had an old gum ball machine hanging around. A siliconed plexiglass bottom and a little led light on top and everyone's happy. I will post more pictures after we acquire our fish.

I wouldn't really put anything in it. It looks kinda small for even a betta. How much water does it hold?

 

[chopinrockwood]

That's exactly what it's for a beta. No heat, no filter. That's why it's a called a bowl not a tank. I have 2 tanks on the go now. As for size it holds 20 cups of water. Not sure how many gallons that is maybe 1-2???

 

[jwh0818]

That's exactly what it's for a beta. No heat, no filter. That's why it's a called a bowl not a tank. I have 2 tanks on the go now. As for size it holds 20 cups of water. Not sure how many gallons that is maybe 1-2???

20 cups is 1.25 gallons. Bettas are tropical fish and need heat too and without filtration you will need to change the water 2-3 times a week. You can make a nice shrimp tank with some small low light plants

 

[Scottyhorse]

Bettas, just like any other fish, need heat and filtration.

 

[Kribensis_2004]

i would think that, the gum bowl aquarium would be great for a few snails and a group of red cherry shrimp.

 

[carey]

Regardless of what goes into this gumball machine, I think its an awesome little build. Very creative!

 

[chopinrockwood]

While I understand that the bigger the tank the better and a heater and filter are preferred but I have kept them in bowls before without any problem. Weekly water changes are nothing new especially with a bowl. I was looking at A couple cloud minnows also. Not with the beta, instead of. The final decision will be my girls not mine.

 

[jwh0818]

Regardless of what goes into this gumball machine, I think its an awesome little build. Very creative!

I definetly agree!

 

[Autumnsky]

White Clouds like cooler water than Bettas, so at long as it is in a warm place in the house and not next to an air conditioner vent, and warm in the house, but need a 10 G.

Cherry shrimp are a great pet to keep, check them out. There are nice little bowl/tank heaters which are almost invisible, very small which can go under your rocks.

 

[chopinrockwood]

Thanks everyone , I would never want to deliberately harm anything and with all talk here steering me away from the betas I do agree. I will look at the shrimp and could show my girls them. Could the shrimp go with a couple minnows or would they get eaten? I know nothing about these shrimp, sorry

 

[Autumnsky]

Don't worry about not knowing any thing about them, you are at AquariumAdvice, where you can get advice (even when you don't really want it, LOL) Kidding aside

The Invertebrates section here on the forum has good info on keeping them. There are other colors of Neocaridina shrimp. They have been bred to have these different colors, like orange, yellow, blue, dark brown (they are a light clearish color similar to a regular Amano Shrimp) The Red Cherry line has been around the longest of the ones bred for color and is most stable and also most forgiving for errors.

Although it seems perfect to get a gumball color assortment you should pic one of color of Neocaridina since the colors are all the same kind of shrimp they will cross breed and your colors will not be like really be like the kind you bought.

Since the other colors can often cost 3 to 10 times the cost of Cherry shrimp, most people start with the Cherry shrimp. Cost is because of easiness to breed, also rarity (availability), newness of the variety and demand of course.

The Cherry shrimp will breed and you can see the eggs under the tail of the female shrimp grow and develope and before birth/hatch you often can see the eyes of the babies and they are unique pets!!! They love having a Marimo moss ball and Java moss to pic at and eat microscopic stuff from.

They kinda ballerina float swim through the water, and climb like Spiderman.

 

[chopinrockwood]

Wow. That's pretty cool. I have had African cichlids for the past 16 years and always walked by them. Now that we have something cool rather then just the bowl we want something cool to put in it as well. Are these shrimp expensive?? I don't mind paying more for something that won't hide all the time. Thanks for the knowledge.

 

[jwh0818]

Wow. That's pretty cool. I have had African cichlids for the past 16 years and always walked by them. Now that we have something cool rather then just the bowl we want something cool to put in it as well. Are these shrimp expensive?? I don't mind paying more for something that won't hide all the time. Thanks for the knowledge.

Red cherry shrimp run around 1$ a piece. The others can reach 15$ a piece depending on the grade of shimp (how vibrantly colored they are) but if you haven't ever kept shrimp I would start with the red cherrys

 

[Autumnsky]

Wow. That's pretty cool. I have had African cichlids for the past 16 years and always walked by them. Now that we have something cool rather then just the bowl we want something cool to put in it as well. Are these shrimp expensive?? I don't mind paying more for something that won't hide all the time. Thanks for the knowledge.

You're welcome, I really LOVE shrimp & inverts (you might have guessed).

I bet keeping these is as much different from Cichlids as night and day, other than the tank and water part!

Hikari has Shrimp Cuisine (kinda expensive online prices are least cost, around $8 or 9D) which I use along with many other things. You can use Hikari omnivore bottom feeder wafers, but they just need tiny amount of food at a time so they don't cause ammonia, etc. and kill them. You can cut up some of the wafers to make feeding easier. Figure the amount they can eat in one meal is around the size of their eye, probably a little more but you can tell that to your girls so they don't want to over feed. So a little food will go a long way. You could feed them that tiny amount 2-3 times a day.

The objective is to not have food laying around. And i usually skip feeding once a week or if they ate a lot the day before. Feeding will be more needed in the new tank that doesn't have much in the way of biofilm. It is good for them to forage later with a more established tank/bowl.

I would recommend medium to dark natural brown sand to black because this darkness allows the shrimp to feel safe coloring up all the way and will likely be brighter as they try to match their color to the darkness of the substrate.

Here the regular cherries run around $1.00 from local hobbyists, but around $3-4 at the LFS. Local hobbyists will usually do something like 12 for $10.

Enjoy. Hope the girls like the idea.

They also like small water changes to keep water content levels stable. Only enough changes to keep water clean and safe parameters. In other words you don't have to frequently change the water just for the sake of changing the water. they like stable parameters more (but safe and clean).

They eat algae and microscopic stuff but in a new tank you don't have microscopic stuff growing in there.

 

[chopinrockwood]

Thank you Wiki-Autumnsky. You just gave me more info then 5 websites. I am up for the challenge with these little fellas. We will be going out tomorrow evening looking for shrimp. I will post pictures after I take them. I have black sand that I will put in the bowl.

You're welcome, I really LOVE shrimp & inverts (you might have guessed).

I bet keeping these is as much different from Cichlids as night and day, other than the tank and water part!

Hikari has Shrimp Cuisine (kinda expensive online prices are least cost, around $8 or 9D) which I use along with many other things. You can use Hikari omnivore bottom feeder wafers, but they just need tiny amount of food at a time so they don't cause ammonia, etc. and kill them. You can cut up some of the wafers to make feeding easier. Figure the amount they can eat in one meal is around the size of their eye, probably a little more but you can tell that to your girls so they don't want to over feed. So a little food will go a long way. You could feed them that tiny amount 2-3 times a day.

The objective is to not have food laying around. And i usually skip feeding once a week or if they ate a lot the day before. Feeding will be more needed in the new tank that doesn't have much in the way of biofilm. It is good for them to forage later with a more established tank/bowl.

I would recommend medium to dark natural brown sand to black because this darkness allows the shrimp to feel safe coloring up all the way and will likely be brighter as they try to match their color to the darkness of the substrate.

Here the regular cherries run around $1.00 from local hobbyists, but around $3-4 at the LFS. Local hobbyists will usually do something like 12 for $10.

Enjoy. Hope the girls like the idea.

They also like small water changes to keep water content levels stable. Only enough changes to keep water clean and safe parameters. In other words you don't have to frequently change the water just for the sake of changing the water. they like stable parameters more (but safe and clean).

They eat algae and microscopic stuff but in a new tank you don't have microscopic stuff growing in there.

 

[chopinrockwood]

Tonight we went out and bought 6 cherry shrimp and some glass coloured jewels. I lit the bottom of the bowl with a LED light and it makes the substrate and shrimp come alive. These little fellas are pretty cool. Thanks for pointing us in this direction.

 

[jwh0818]

Tonight we went out and bought 6 cherry shrimp and some glass coloured jewels. I lit the bottom of the bowl with a LED light and it makes the substrate and shrimp come alive. These little fellas are pretty cool. Thanks for pointing us in this direction.

That looks really good! Maybe when you decide to get better shrimp you can play around with the idea of low light plants and sandy bottom

 

[chopinrockwood]

The more that I have been looking at this side of the "fish" world the better it looks. Going between this and my African tank is like riding my bike then switching to a scooter. Nothing wrong with scooters. It's just different. Upgrading looks good but think we will just keep it on the small scale for now. Let's see if I can keep them alive first.