3d printed breeder for CPD

[mrPickles]

Lowell's Fish Lab is a really great channel, especially regarding breeding and fish experiments. He has a 3d printed air lift system for fish breeding that I'm trying out for my Celestial Pearl Danios/Galaxy Raspbora. I paid $5 for the .stl file and printed it myself.

For anyone interested in the print details, I printed on a Prusa MK3s+ with a .8mm nozzle and took about 13hrs total for all parts needed. Accuracy and quality were good enough for me. Others with the standard .4mm nozzle were 2-2.5x that print time. There was some stringing that initially prevented a little water flow, but I cleaned those up with a file. This sits on top of a 40 gallon tank, but he has files to fit everything down to 5 gal tanks.

 

 

It uses an airlift pump to slowly and very gently bring water up into the tray. The initial fill took about 20 minutes so it should have ~3x turnover per hour. He has another bracket that would allow you to add another airline into the tray for aeration. Here is a video of it filling so you can see how it bubbles up from the corner and how slow the flow is. There is a cap for the corner to stop the bubbles from splashing. There is also a slot for a replaceable filter to stop the fry from getting out through the overflow.

 

Airlift:

Filled up and flowing out the filter.

 

 

I'm working on printing the egg catcher next. I was hoping to plumb the airlift suction into the egg catcher so it would suck them up directly, but I'm not sure if I see a way I can do that.

[GoofyGarra]

@Lowells Fish Lab

[mrPickles]

Oh, awesome! I had no idea he was on the forum! Thanks for designing this @Lowells Fish Lab! I'll update the post as things progress.

[Lowells Fish Lab]

Hey, that looks familiar! I hope it works well for you.

 

Just an FYI, you're right on the edge of where that uplift will stop working. It was designed to tolerate the water level dropping down near the very bottom of the tray while still moving some water, but really no more than that. Ideally the tank water level would be just below the overflow point on the tray itself. Ideally at least for uplift efficiency anyway. With the water level higher you should be able to get about 12X circulation into the tray with a fill time of about 5 mins. Not that you need it. I never run it that hard.

 

Also, if you want to connect an automatic egg collector to it and you can wait a bit, I have one almost ready. Really, it's ready, I just need to make a video to explain it and other nonsense like that. I'm slow.

 

[mrPickles]

@Lowells Fish Lab Oh that is exciting. The manual catcher is almost finished printing, so I'll give that a shot in the meantime. Thanks for making such high quality content! Can't wait to see it.

I noticed the flow wasn't the greatest, and I figured it was due to the water level. I just fill manually with RO water, so I'm slow about it. Also though, when I measured it had 3x turnover per hour so I figured it was fine.

[Schuyler]

I use it too and it works great. The one thing to watch out for is during water changes if you fill the tank too quickly the fry tray will float and sometimes it tips

[egruttum]

@Lowells Fish Labwhen do you think you'll have the auto collector ready for the world?  I'd love to be one of the first to print it so you have pictures from a real user.  See how I'm positioning myself as the nice guy and not just trying to get the stl?  But in all seriousness I'd be more than happy to join your patreon to get access to it.

[Lowells Fish Lab]

23 hours ago, egruttum said:

@Lowells Fish Labwhen do you think you'll have the auto collector ready for the world?  I'd love to be one of the first to print it so you have pictures from a real user.  See how I'm positioning myself as the nice guy and not just trying to get the stl?  But in all seriousness I'd be more than happy to join your patreon to get access to it.

 

I'm going to give myself a deadline and say before Christmas.

[mrPickles]

7 minutes ago, Lowells Fish Lab said:

 

I'm going to give myself a deadline and say before Christmas.

So you’re saying I should stop refreshing every day in the hopes it’s ready tomorrow?

[egruttum]

35 minutes ago, mrPickles said:

So you’re saying I should stop refreshing every day in the hopes it’s ready tomorrow?

This isn't a Wootoff.  Shift+F5 is probably a little overkill.