Goldfish bowl with blown-glass mountains

Fishbowls are cruel (arguably), but if you're looking for an arty fishbowl for your, say, robotic fish, or a place to keep Goldie while his large, stimulating tank is being cleaned, Fishscape is a pretty cool choice. Hand-blown in Turkey, it features lovely, refracting glass mountainscapes.

Fishscape Fishbowl by aruliden (via Crib Candy)

• [Alvis]

  I’d dig it as a tumbler.  Scotch on the rocks, as it were.

• [Katie Gray Craven]

  Plastic fish might assuage your guilt. I keep suggesting velcro to the Portuguese bull-fighters for the same reason but they don’t seem to listen,   ) – :  

• [RJ]

  Might be swanky for sea monkeys or neato for neon tetras.

  I bet an enterprising maker could fab a larger mountain range out of a big sheet of plexi, some upright broom handles and a heat gun. It would look pretty slick in the bottom of a 55-gallon tank.

  • [chenille]

    Despite the size, neon tetras need more room than goldfish. Goldfish are relatively tough, and can even take oxygen from the air if the water is poor, although that’s not a good sign. Neons are the most fragile of tetras, and would need at the very least a place for ammonia-removing bacteria to grow.

    Bettas do ok in containers like this, although they do appreciate more space, too. I bet little crustaceans like sea monkeys or water fleas would be a great choice.

• [dculberson]

  “fishbowl for your, say, robotic fish”

  I’m gonna eat you little fishie…

  Just make sure not to chip a fang!

• [Mister44]

  Meh – if fish aren’t over crowded, are fed, and the water clean, I can’t see how it’s cruel.

  • [Brewer_ME]

    The clean water part is the problem.  Without mechanical filtration, the nitrogen cycle is very difficult to establish; without the nitrogen cycle, the water would need to be changed daily.  Same goes for betta… 

    Now- as a mini planted tank this could be very awesome.  Hard to do though…

• [scifijazznik]

  It’s a lovely design but it may be better for a Betta.

• [Thylacinthine]

  It would look nice with the water level half way up the mountains, and a layer of duck weed floating like tiny green clouds (or lumpy green smog).

• [Huwman]

  The term “hand-blown” has always confused me…

  • [Claire Hummel]

    Blown by hand, with a handheld blowpipe, as opposed to being mold-blown.  Pretty straightforward.

    • [Huwman]

      Well, yes, I assumed that what it means but technically I’d call that hand-molded or hand-formed and likely mouth-blown (or perhaps using some kind of bellows). If you try actually “blowing” something with your hand I think you’ll see why I consider this a bit of an odd term.

• [skyhawk1]

  I’ll wait for the Adm. Ackbar – It’s a trap! bowl.

• [efergus3]

  Nice – but where would you find climbing/rappelling gear for a fish?

• [MitchSchaft]

  That’s not a goldfish bowl. Goldfish need 10 gallons MINIMUM per fish. And that’s when they’re babies. Full-grown, you can double or triple that requirement. Otherwise you’re changing water every day to fight the nitrate levels.

• [MitchSchaft]

  goldfish do not take oxygen from the air. that’s an asinine comment. If you ever see a goldfish “sipping” the air outside of the water, that’s their way of saying the water is crummy and they need help.

  • [chenille]

    Goldfish can, not should. I mention it as an example of how they’re relatively tough, not to say leaving them in those conditions is a good idea.

• [Multinörd]

  I thought about small aquariums a while back, is there any scientific evidence/consensus on how it effects them? Because I would guess it would be quite easy to test stress hormones and how they act in the enviroment(How much they eat and so on).

  I mean of course there is a problem with small tanks because it’s hard to have a balanced ecosystem in them and because of that the water quality often suffers but if you ignore/solve those problems does limiting the space accessible to the fish hurt it?

  • [Brewer_ME]

    If we’re still talking goldfish, then yeah- growth rates, mortality, life expectancy are all shortened. Goldfish can live 20 years if properly provided for.   They are active swimmers given the chance, and it’s very hard to regulate the quality of a small volume of water. 

• [Skye MacLeod]

  That’s cool. It kinda looks like an iceberg with a gigantic goldfish perusing for Titanic remains.

• [Incipient Madness]

  A goldfish should never be put in a bowl. Goldfish are large growing, high metabolic rate fish. They belong in large tanks and ponds where they have a chance to live our their multiyear lifespans instead of choking on their ammonia.

  Bettas and Gambusia are better choices for a small habitat.

  BTW, “betta” is prounounced “bet-ah”, not the same as the Greek letter “beta”.

• [anaximander]

  For a long time, I actually had quite the collection of glass fish – something like this – http://www.jacousa.com/content/60.htm (See the seahorses, about halfway down the page.) This would make me want to find my collection.

• [GrrrlRomeo]

  I don’t know that this would be very good for a betta fish either…at least not a male. He might see his reflection in the glass mountains and try to fight the reflection.

• [Tyler Theroux]

  I dont understand how no one thought of the fact that you can have a tank of any size with mountains or whatever blown into it.

• [Johanna Marmolejos]

  Actually, a Betta would need AT LEAST a 5 gallon tank and would be much happier and way more active if put in a 10 gallon tank. 

  I had one in a 10 gallon tank and he was always swimming around. A sight for sore eyes!

• [Pieter Jossa]

  Poor fishy