Failed project: goldfish in a light fixture

Make: Online is featuring a number of first-hand accounts of failed projects, big and small. The first in the series is about Sean Michael Ragan's attempt to make a combination light fixture / goldfish bowl. I don't see any failure here. This looks like a big win, especially since Sean used a rubber goldfish, which is probaby impervious to suffering.

First problem: the globe on my porch light was frosted and I sure wasn't going to spend good money to buy a clear one. Clever solution: Etch the frosting off the globe I had using 50% concentrated hydrochloric acid. It worked great! And generated only 1000 mL of toxic chemical waste!

Next problem: I didn't want to use actual water in the globe. This was an electrical device, after all, and as Newton's Third Law teaches us, water + electricity = bad. So I settled on mineral oil. Which is, you know, flammable and stuff, but, hey, at least it wouldn't short anything out or cause rusting. I glued the fish and the plant to some rocks, arranged them tastefully in the bottom of the globe, and poured in the oil.

Failed project: goldfish in a light fixture

• [Daemon]

  Shame for generating 1000mL of toxic goo instead of spending a few bucks at a store.

  Seriously, there are places that sell used things like that dirt cheap, with proceeds going to habitat for humanity of the like. Could have probably worked a trade aswell.

  Also… 1000mL = 1L.

  Beyond that… I can’t help but think the amusement value of this will be dead within the week, and the tackiness will set in.

• [Anonymous]

  It all sounded ok until he got to “So I downgraded to a 7.5W sign bulb.” When the front porch light is as dim as the night light in the bathroom, you need to reconsider the project.

• [AirPillo]

  Sure mineral oil is flammable, technically, but you’re not going to ignite something used to cool transformers handling tens of kilowatts of power with the puny heat emitted by a light bulb.

  It’d be like igniting a magnesium ingot with a match. Good luck.

• [jnyemb]

  A safer alternative to water or flammable mineral oil might be acrylic water. It’s mainly used for fake flower arrangements.

• [Karl Jones]

  “a rubber goldfish, which is probably impervious to suffering.”

  Sounds like a challenge to me: a rubber goldfish which experiences suffering. How about it, Science?

• [Matthew Miller]

  Sounds like the failure is that there wasn’t actually room for a bright bulb in the end. I’m with you on not really calling that a failure, though — more of a “okay, so that’s version 0.1″ experience.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Sounds like the failure is that there wasn’t actually room for a bright bulb in the end.

    That’s a pretty normal light bulb for that fixture style. I had exactly the same 7.5W bulbs in something similar. You don’t really need a search light at your front door.

• [Freddie Freelance]

  Did anyone else think “I’d've used Perspex”?

• [KurtMac]

  It would seem that a lightbulb will work perfectly fine submerged in water according to these folks and their art installation: http://www.wokmedia.com/?p=44

  • [Itsumishi]

    I’d guess that those too are submerged in mineral oil.
    Cool idea for an art piece though!

• [Nuts & Bolts]

  @AirPillo
  Transformer oil has been treated, so as to resist the danger of ‘self supporting combustion’.
  Also, the oil cooling system needs to be designed to deal with the generation of flammable gases.
  They are never situated inside commercial buildings.
  Etc.
  A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

• [Mitch]

  A waterproof light bulb enclosure like they make for wet environments inside the fishbowl would make it possible to have the light under the water. I’d be more impressed with a real fish or at least a fake fish that had a heat or light powered motors.

• [adonai]

  I’d prefer to combine the two and have a luminous fish…

• [franko]

  i think that fake water acrylic is the way to go. it’s an awesome idea, keep working at it!

• [dculberson]

  I have a 7w compact fluorescent in my porch light and it’s plenty bright. So swap out the incandescent and you’re good to go!

• [Honkytowner]

  Shouldn’t that be 50% hydroFLUORic acid?

• [efergus3]

  Should have been a live coelacanth. THAT would have been impressive. Or a model of the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

• [Anonymous]

  Pure water is an insulator. A very very good one.

  However, pure water is only found in laboratories (my wife sometimes spends weeks making large quantities) and it doesn’t stay pure for long once it leaves a sealed container (there’s a reason it’s called the universal solvent).

  Water with dissolved impurities conducts alternating electric currents in various interesting fashions depending on the characteristics of the impurities and the characteristics of the electricity (most importantly the frequency).

  DC generally doesn’t travel through fresh water, except in extreme circumstances like insane levels of current or insane levels of impurity. I wouldn’t bother to insulate underwater connectors carrying pure DC, except on shocker boats used by icthyologists for fish counts.

• [mamayama]

  Actually, one of the most cool-looking aquaria I ever say was one my neighbor improvised from a clear globed swag light (yes, this was a long time ago!). The globe magnified the colorful, live-tubifex-worm-fed betta he had in there (he’d upgraded the electrical part of the fixture to meet aquarium standards, and yes, a small bulb)…at night, when he turned off the room lights and turned on the globe light, the betta gently wafted it’s fluttering fins, mind-bendingly gorgeous…visitors would just stand and stare, emitting awe-struck noises.

  Of course, when you opened his fridge and saw those color-enhancing live tubifex worms trying to crawl out of their container like a bowl of living brown sludge, you’d emit other kinds of noises, but that’s another story.

• [noah django]

  I figured the fail was in filling up the outdoor glass globe with water. First sub-zero day and it goes in la basura. but the oil took care of that concern. So, yeah; why fail?