3D Printing in the Aquarium Hobby

Feb 7, 2017 | 3D Printers

In the recent years, 3D Printing has invaded our lives in a good way, giving us access to part fabrication in times they are not available.

For example say that it’s a Sunday and you are performing your regular aquarium cleaning routine and you accidently break a part of your canister filter.

What will you do? its a Sunday..!

Fortunatly for thoes who have a 3D Printer there is a solution.

With some 3D modeling and 15 min of print time you can make your own spare part.

And if you don’t know 3d modeling maybe someone else has made the part that you need and shared it as it hapens in this case.

EHEIM aquarium filter replacement clip for sealing bracket

As you can see a 3D Printer is a usefull tool and gives you acces to all sorts of parts that it can make for you as you can se here that can be used inside and out of our aquarium for both fresh water and marine aquariums.

The tools and things needed to start 3D Printing in the Aquarium Hobby are the following.

Parts and Design:

The easiest way is by finding a ready made part in the web. Some of the websites that provide free 3D Printer parts are listed below:

The harder but most rewarding way is to design your own part using 3D Dsesign software. Some of the most popular 3D Design programms are listed below:

Material Selection:

For use out of the water any colour or type of material can do the trick PLA, ABS , Acrylic, etc. given that it meets your part strength requirements.

Inside of the water is a whole diffrent story. Especialy pigments and materials themselves can be toxic to aquatic environments which limits us to natural ABS a common but strong material in the 3D Printing world.

Natural PLA is not an option as it degrades over a short time period

This is an incomplete article