Wave breaker for aquarium

Originally published here: Wave breaker for aquarium by tato_713 - Thingiverse

This is a buoy, or floater, designed to absorb the swells generated by the flow of air and water from the aquarium air pump. It's especially useful for floating plants like this water fern from genera Azolla, or duckweeds (Lemna). It works also as a floating platform for shrimps and amphipods I have in the aquarium. I added a voronoi part that is intended to slow down the water flow by "friction". It does not need any anchor, it does it by itself with the opposite surface flows.

I design this using SolidWorks, creating two parts, the buoy and the plummet. This last one was "voronised" using Voronator, then merging both parts. I didn't make any equation to design this, I just guessed; it still works fine. I do not recommend scaling it down, but if you do I suggest scaling the X and Y axis inversely with the Z axis. Say, if you scale XY by 75%, do it by 150% in Z. However, do not go lower than 75%, it would be too deformed, and it probably won't float anyway. This is because if you scale down, the wall width remains the same, making it heavier. Remember that the PLA density is higher than water's. It's necessary to use no infill to asure buoyancy.

I spend part of my time making these models, letting them available and free for everyone. If you want to support my work, you can contribute with me by donating to this PayPal account.

Print Settings

Rafts:

No

Supports:

No

Infill:

0%

Notes:

Do it as watertight as possible, but I do not recommend to use more than two layers of wall, floor and roof (up to 1mm for either of those), to improve the buoyancy.