Suggest a Lid for Fish Bowl Enclosure

[Potatatas]

Picked up a cheap plastic fish bowl which I thought would make a cool enclosure. Struggling to think of how to make a lid for it though. Anyone have any lid suggestions? My "grand idea" is to just put a flat piece of plastic on top with a weight on top of that. Not very professional, i know...

Don't have pics but the hole for the lid is roughly 3inches diameter

 

[Andrea82]

Picked up a cheap plastic fish bowl which I thought would make a cool enclosure. Struggling to think of how to make a lid for it though. Anyone have any lid suggestions? My "grand idea" is to just put a flat piece of plastic on top with a weight on top of that. Not very professional, i know...

Don't have pics but the hole for the lid is roughly 3inches diameter

Pics are kind of vital to answering your question imo

 

[Scoly]

Try this:

Equipment:

1. A plastic pot (plant, pot noodle etc...) whose rim is wider than the fish bowl aperture, but whose walls will slide in the hole, as if you were going to use it for a hydroponic setup. The more rigid the better.
   
2. A frying pan splash guard - which you can usually buy from a bargain store (for £1 or £2). This often works out cheaper than buying actual mesh sheets!
   
3. An old sock.
4. Large kitchen scissors.

Method:

1. Cut the top 2 cm or so of the plant pot so you just have a plastic ring which sits neatly in the aperture but doesn't fall in.
2. Cut out a big circle of mesh from the frying pan splash guard. Discard the handle and metal outer ring (you can cut the mesh with big scissors).
3. Place the mesh circle over the aperture, place the plastic pot ring on top, and push it downwards into the bowl, folding the mesh to shape as you go, so that the plant pot ring is sitting in the aperture, but with the mesh moulded to shape around it.
4. Cut most of the protruding mesh sticking out of the bowl, but leave some overlapping. Try to do this over a bin, as the small steel wire segments that fly off make the worst splinters, and lethal if they fall into a carpet - seriously...
5. Unless your plastic pot is an exact fit, the whole contraption might be a bit loose, in which case cut an old sock into strips so as to make 2 cm wide elasticated bands. Put one or two around the contraption so the sock is between the mesh and the glass, thereby creating a more snug fit.

You may need to play around with it a bit. So long as it is snug and the mesh spills over the rim of the bowl a bit, and there is no high object inside which a large spider would be able to use to push the lid open, it'll be pretty safe.