Does anyone have one of these or something similar?

My other sister wants to use this for a fish bowl. It's about 4 gallons. I'm kinda afraid to fill it up with water because the small base looks fairly weak but that's the only way to test it to be sure it'll hold the weight of the water + gravel. :-\

She wants to fill 3/4 of it with water and about 1" of gravel. The PepsI can is for size reference.

 

Beautiful bowl but would be really hard to put a filter and heater in it.
Carol

 

I plan to put a small internal filter (Duetto Mini) and a 7.5W Hydor MinI heater under the gravel if it passes the load test. We will likely put in a couple tall low light plants to hide the ugly filter and wires. 

 

That will cut your water capacity down to ?? is the 7.5W Hydor MinI heater meant to go under the gravel?
If it's got enough water capacity after all that's added it would be pretty with one tall plant in the middle and open water all around the outside.
Carol

 

Yeah the Hydor MinI is safe to bury in the gravel, it's mentioned in the instructions. I guess after the gravel and decorations the water volume will be down to about 3 gallons, but I'll have to measure the actual volume because I'm not really sure if this bowl is 4 gallons or not. My guess is that it's slightly more than 4 gallons. I may mount the Duetto MinI in the horizontal mode on the bottom of the tank and rotate the water outlet 90 degrees upward.