Jim’s azoox fish bowl is one of the most elaborate of its kind

By on Oct 05, 2012

Fish bowls usually remind us of the least exciting part of the hobby; gold fish that are way too large for the bowl with no filtration and hideous gravel comes to mind. However, Jim’s azoox fish bowl is completely on the other end of the spectrum as one of the coolest systems of its kind. Jim’s reef bowl slightly reminds us of the bubble chair reef bowl, as this system shares the rounded curves and a clarity that you can only expect from spherical aquariums. At 16” this tank is much smaller and as a non-photosynthetic system is also much more complicated. The azoox fish bowl unfortunately lacks the magic spark that would makes it absolutely mind boggling, but it’s cool concept make this an awesome system nonetheless.

At 16 inches in diameter the azoox fish bowl holds approximately 7 gallons when filled, so along with the sump the system is well within nano limits. It is not just the size and shape of the system that make this azoox fish bowl really cool. The system in general features some neat tricks as well. One of the first neat things is the systems pluming, which is designed to be invisible within the system. To accomplish this a 2” drain is used in conjunction with a 1/2 return plumped into the tube drain. With the big drain the system is able to handle a lot of water and a mag 5 is actually used to provide flow within the 7 gallon fish bowl. 

Another neat thing is the stand which also serves as the sump. For the stand a sewage pipe large enough to hold the tank was used, and a bottom was glued in making the inner compartment water proof to serve as a sump.Within the sump a Tunze 9205 skimmer is used along with chemical filtration keeping the system nice and clean. The system is unfortunately currently for sale, but hopefully the system will be sold as a whole to maintain the legacy.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jason-Frick/100001223981671 Jason Frick

    That’s very cool. (no pun intended)

  • Clive Bentley

    Brilliantly done. I have to wonder though, with the drain so low in the tank, how were power outages dealt with? You can put a check valve on the return, but what stops the tank from draining? I tried a small pico with a hidden drain and return, but had to expose the drain and mount it higher to stop the tank from draining completely.

  • IWannaGoFast

    It might not be built into the system, and I’m thinking out loud here but could you put the drain on a solenoid so that it closes when the water level gets too high in the sump

  • Jason Jones

    The drain plumbing actually goes up behind the tank and sets the water level. The water height remains stable when power is turned off. If you look at the bottom picture, you can see the drain plumbing on the right

  • Tom Price

    Does anyone know of any manufacturers of large (50 gallon+) glass fish bowls?

  • Clive Bentley

    Are you sure about that? If you read the article, it clearly states that the plumbing is hidden in the tank, and that the 1/2″ return is plumbed through the 2″ drain. That doesn’t sound external to me. I’m pretty sure that the item to the side of the bottom picture is the pole for hanging the lights.

    Joost, any chance of getting a link to the original build info?

  • ReeVo

    I’ve been following Jim’s build on reefcentral since day one. Great build.
    I hope OP doesn’t mind me posting his build thread.
    http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1997195

  • Jeremy Williams

    Very cool looking

  • Clive Bentley

    Ah, I see what you are talking about now. The vaccuum break is in the plumbing behind the tank.