Jellyfish Art owes a lot to the kreisel design, and their $ 399 Jellyflap Aquarium is essentially a stylish kreisel tank. These tanks were designed to raise jellyfish, or larval stage fish and seahorses. They sort of work for jellyfish, like endless pools work for swimmers. Kreisel tanks create a non-stop circular gyre, which jellyfish can drift through much like they would in an oceanic current.

In a kreisel tank, all filtration is separate from the main aquarium, and circulation is accomplished by a specialized piping return, which both creates a gentle gyre through the round tank and prevents jellyfish from getting entangled. It only allows water and very small particles through, preventing jellyfish from making their way into a filtration chamber. Kreisel is a German word meaning “spinning” or “gyro-scope.” A kreisel tank is entirely round, and the filter overflow is a screen without any large openings. Successful jellyfish keeping owes everything to the advent of kreisel tanks. Needless to say, I am pleasantly surprised, even thoroughly impressed with the results.

Had this small crowd-funded start-up discovered the “art” of jellyfish keeping? What had changed, making something seemingly impossible to keep, suddenly possible in a small pico-environment? To find out for myself, I decided to give a Jellyfish Art system a try. Suddenly though, a few aquarists I know were giving Jellyfish Art’s all-in-one jellyfish systems a shot, and they were reporting great results. I had watched several of my aquarium pals invest some serious dough in a “jellyfish aquarium” with no luck whatsoever, just a lot of wasted dollars and a few dead jellyfish. When I first stumbled upon Jellyfish Art, I sort of chuckled to myself, thinking that it was impossible jellyfish keeping would become popular, or even easy. A traditional reef aquarium is certainly no place for a jellyfish, and it’s only a matter of time until they are sucked up by filtration, or shredded to bits by a propeller pump. Not because jellyfish are particularly sensitive to aquarium life, but because their jelly like (boneless) bodies have the terrible habit of getting stuck in circulation pumps, filter intakes, or overflow drains. In the past, it seemed like an impossible feat. For a long time, aquarists have wanted to keep jellyfish.

Diy fake jellyfish tank