My friend loves to make small (under 10gal) ascetic tanks in art at our school...and does it as often as possible because the parts and supplies are payed for by the school...This time he wants to put in a small 6" diameter plasma ball in the bottom of the tank for lighting. In addition he's making his own custom filtration system for it. The whole thing, he plans, will have an "overrun industrial" look with lots of metallic looking objects that are covered in plants.

My, and his, question is that if the plasma ball is put in the water as a light source, will it be a hazard to the fish that swim too close? Has anybody tested this? Does anyone forsee any changes this might make to the water itself? It is a variable voltage plasma ball, ranging from 5V to 10V and is connected to a DC adapter.

Ummmm.... you're dealing with electricity here, if it's not meant to come into contact with water, I would be very careful if I was you. I've got absolutely no experience of doing this so I'm not going to say any more about the subject

I have no experience with this... But I would say it is most likely a bad idea.

Well the way I see it if worst comes to worst and it appears the plasma ball is too strong, we have two options. We can either turn down the Voltage of the plasma ball and if that doesn't work, we can make a thin plastic or plexiglass or glass bowl type of cover to go around the plasma ball, but leave a small gap of air between the outer glass of the ball and the inner surface of the cover.

I recently tried to put the glass top of my small plasma ball in some water (without fish to test because local place is outa feeder goldfish) and all that really seemed to happen was that the intensity of the ball overall increased- I tried touching it and didn't feel any strong extra shock. I will run more tests later with my friend so we can brainstorm better approaches to this potential problem.

Fish are much smaller than you are. Just because you do not feel anything... does not mean that it will not have a great effect on the fish.

Whats a plasma ball, any chance of a pic

probably not a good idea to have it in contact with water unless it is designed to be in water. However a glass little box sealed so no water gets in would work, the only problem would be if you need to get to it to maintain it

uh im a electrician apprentice so from what iv been taught i wouldnt advise this unless its the listed intent! plus the ball gives off alot of static electricty which would more than likely bother the fish if not harm them so unless you come up with some sort of shielding for the ball.. it takes one half of a amp to stop a human heart so think of that for a fish.. good luck hope you guyz can figure something out it would look pretty sick!!

wet yr hand and touch the plasma ball and let me know how it feels.

i just tried it with my daughters plasma ball and the static really hurt.

so i suggest u dont get it near water as yr poor fish r gonna get it 4rm the static.

it would look nice though