Unboxing - Jumbo Fish Bowl

My long awaited Biorb about to be unboxed.  Oh, wait!  It is Jumbo Fish bowl (20 inches diameter, 14 inches high).  Priced at a fraction of actual Biorb, this huge fishbowl served just as good as actual Biorbe.

I placed Eden 501 external filter canister next to the fish bowl for measurement.  The glass thickness is 0.6cm and the bowl is quite light to carry around.

This fishbowl has wide opening at the top (12 inches) - more than enough space for lighting, fan and filtering. It also allows plenty of space for my hand to move around for future aquascaping. Stay tune for future update.

A nice piece of talking point, with volume of at least 12 gallons? I lugged 4 large pails of water to fill this bowl to its brim. Massive!

Sketching on aquascape 
I have googled how people did their aquascaping on a Jumbo fishbowl and decided to come out with my own that is not too packed that the fishes can't swim - taking note of  swimming space, hiding space, feeding space, scape texture, low tech plants, small community fishes.    Here are two Option to think about:-

Option 1 - planted bowl (Most likely)

Flora in Mind
Cryptiocoryne
Fern
Water sprite/Wisteria
Dwarf pennywort
Stargrass
fern



Option 2 - rocky bowl

Flora in Mind
Weeping Moss
creeping plants - dwarf pennywort
Bucephalandra
E-Tenellus

Creatures to Consider Mix & Match

Amano Shrimps (always a favorite)
Malayan Shrimps
Boraras brigittae
Endlers
Cardinal or Neon tetrra
Assassin snail (if necessary)
Otocinclus
Kulih Loach

Garra Fish
Rainbow Fish
Lampeyes
Dwarf Gourami...
Rummy Nose

Well see how thing goes....

Update: 25 May 2016 
Here is a kick-start of my planted Jumbo Bowl.

Plants: Water sprite, water wisteria, marsilea hirsuta, dwarf pennywort , windelov fern, nana, crypt backteii, crypt wendtii brown, stargrass.

Fishes: Dwarf rainbow fish, endler, yellow guyppy, cherry barb, betta, Amano shrimps, Otocinclus 

Substrate: 6kg (3 inches thick), black unbranded substrate for plants & shrimps. Polished natural color river rocks.

Light:  4watts led light (blue/white)

Filter:  Eden 501

Having done the above, I am keeping my hands off and let the bowl go on auto-pilot bowl.

Update:  1 July 2016 
Here is the latest matured Jungle Fish Bowl

Marina 360 Aquarium

The first time I ran my eyes on this Hagen's kit was at a pet shop in Thomson shopping mall. I fell in love with it instantly (for loving round/circular tank so much) but the rediculous high price was killing my interest. I than did a google search for the actual retail price, where this product was invented (in canada?). I went on a hunt in LFS during each visit. Fortunately, I managed to grab one at a LFS which I figured (with cheapest freight rate factored in) was close to the retail price sold internationally.  With this new aquisition, I can delete the exhorbitant BIORB, which never seems to go away, in my wish list.. Thus, I pampered myself with early christmas gift (my last christmas pressent was at least 5 years ago or even longer, too distant to remember what it was). Anyway, enough of self-pity whinning, let me briefly introduce this 360 Marina Aqaurium Kit,

INTRODUCTION
The cyclinder, made of cyrstal clear acrylic, measures 10 inches tall by 10 inches diameter and run on 9w Led light (and 4.8w moon light).The kit has a cover too!!!

Compare the size of this Marina 360 degree aquarium kit to my recent BOYU 180 degree aquarium, you can see their difference in size.

The aquarium has a movable internal filter cum lightings cum switch. Thus there is no messy wiring except a single cable that connects all electrical components together.   Let me pull out the actual pump from the white casing, it has two interchangeable bio pads which can be bought separately at LFS.

I tilt over the filter casing to review the lighting part. The black round socket is where the led lights are located. The base filter casing has tiny holes to prevent larger debris from getting sucked into filter.

Pump output is 150L/Hr (very quiet)

The whole plug-n-play  kit also came with each bottle of Cycling and Anti-Chlorine solutions, all well thought out by the manufacturer.

 












NOW THE PLANTING PART
Having seen how the  structure works and limitation of tank size. I have decided not to go for any form of substrate even though there was 2 inches gap, between the base of tank and filter, catered for this purpose. Reason being:- I wanted more space in the tank and also facilitate cleaning up dirts without messing with substrate.  However, this does not mean I cannot create a "heavily planted tank" out of limited choice - low tech and soil-less plants.

I took some plants from my other heavily planted tank to  create the followings:-

  .







Front row: Rock bridge covered with weeping moss, topped with petite nana. These were salvage items from my old broken tank.
Back row (leaning against the filter); Long wood tied with needle fern, weeping most, petite nana and a final touch of Bucephalandra. (think wabi-kusa style).  Flanked by two blocks of Windelov fern.

My planting style may look quite compact inside this small aquarium but it isn't.  Here is the top view of the tank and you will see there is actually more space for fishes (haven't decided yet) to manuever on top space, around the plants and under the "planted bridge".

Thus, this is the planted 10 inches nano tank looks like..

Fauna in mind are...:

Couple pieces of Amano and Malayan shrimps. Simply, this aquarium is going to be low maintenance for night light purpose..


Once again, enjoy!!!