Gumball Machine Fishtank

Do you have a old gumball machine hiding around your house? Instead of an ugly unused , why not recycle it into a fish tank that's perfect for your desk! Inspired by many pictures of strange fish tanks I decided to create a tank that would look good wherever it was placed. The result was a fish tank inside a gumball machine.

This gumball machine is the perfect house for a betta fish or any other small caged aquatic animal. If you enjoyed this instructable, Please vote.

For this project you will need

1. Gumball Machine
2. Glass
3. Aquarium Sealant (cannot use regular silicone or the fish will die)
4. Sharpie
5. Glass Cutter

That's all you need!

Start by taking your gumball machine and taking it apart. Not all gumball machine are the same so I will list the general steps

1. Unscrew the lid
2. Take bowl off
3. Unscrew and discard the plastic pieces inside
4. Clean
5. Put back together excluding the plastic pieces

Flip the bowl upside down and draw a circle around the base of the bowl. Trace the side that is the opposite of the lid.

Now you can see the basic idea is that the circle will fit into the bowl and seal the water.

Using a glass cutter, cut out the circle.

The trick to this is to keep making cuts. Each time slowly put more pressure onto the cutter. After a while you can simply peel the glass around the circle off.

Once the circle is off, Sand so that it fits very tightly into the bowls base of the gumball machine.

Place the glass circle into the bowl and seal off using the aquarium sealant. Now reseal it again so it completely seals the water into the bowl

You should now place it in a well ventilated area to let it dry for one day.

Fill with a small amount of water and see if it holds for 1 hour. Now fill with more water and see if that holds for 1 hour. If it has passed fill it all the way and let it test for 1 day. If no water has leaked your gumball machine can now hold water!

Your Done! Just fill with water and your new fish tank is complete! The only thing that you need now is a fish and since this is a pretty small tank, your pretty much limited to 1 betta fish.

Now place your tank anywhere you want!