Fish bowls are great for fish, but they’re not exactly the healthiest places to grow your own plants. Most fish tanks with plants are cramped spaces, with little room to move about and get the most out of your space. But you don’t have to make fish bowl a place for fish only; you can grow plants and even use them in a terrarium with your fish. With some terrarium plants, there’s no limit as far as what you can do and grow.
One of the best things about fish bowls is that they’re easy to set up. Almost any plant can be placed in a fish bowl and filled with water and left alone for a couple of weeks. If you want, you can also give your plants a small amount of light every day. Just set the lights to a few minutes on or off and keep your plant’s nice and dark. There are some terrarium plants that are just fantastic for this situation.
Most of these plants will require only water and a fair amount of light to survive, making them very low maintenance. The first thing you need to remember when setting up your fish bowl is to never put live plants in it. Even rocks will do. It’s best to stick to faux rocks and other low maintenance alternatives.
Some of the more popular plants for fish bowls include Java Moss and Java Fern. Both these options are low maintenance, although the Fern may have a tendency to grow too much. You can always remove some of the Java Fern from the pots and repot it into smaller pots. But it still doesn’t look as natural as a real rock would. But if you really want to go for the look, there are dozens of terrarium plants that look great in bowls, including various kinds of lettuce and peas.
There’s another way to create the perfect fish bowls for betta tanks. If you have an empty, shallow bowl already sitting in your house, you can fill it with gravel or sand to make it look like a tank. Place some small stones on the bottom and some fake plants on top, and give it a few rocks and pebbles to really set it off. This look is similar to hanging a small terrarium on your wall or ceiling.
Betta fish bowls are an excellent choice for your betta tanks because they are small and contained. However, there’s still no reason not to decorate them nicely. Betta fish are notoriously finicky eaters, so you’re not going to be getting many meals out of them if you place a few too many fish in there at once. One thing you can do is to place a couple of floating mushrooms on the bottom and put a couple of cut up leaves on top. These floating mushrooms will draw the better’ attention and hopefully the nibblers will stick around to enjoy a snack.
Betta tanks with terrariums are a great option because the fish can float on the surface of the water. The only real problem is that sometimes you won’t be able to get your fish in and out of the bowls. You may also find that they’ll get squished if they try to swim up and down. That’s why it’s often a good idea to have more than one fish bowl.
Your finch, cat, or parrot can enjoy a snack as well. Just remember that placing fish bowls in the middle of your terrarium isn’t good for them. They’ll need a way of moving around safely in order to avoid swallowing their own tail. A fish bowl succulent terrarium will solve this problem beautifully.