Czech airlift tube for aquarium

Never buy PVC tubes again as long as you have filament in the house :-)

For an aquarium, the corner filter or Hamburger Mattenfilter as we call it in germany is an easy, simple and low maintenance filter. A matt is crossed by the "dirty" water, bacteria in the matt do the nitrification work. The only thing you need is some kind of a pump. The principle of the czech airlift is also pretty simple: you push air into a tube, air bubble are rising up in the tube, and force water with them.

This tube is 200mm in height, 25mm in diameter. In the lower segment, there are 420 holes (1mm) through which the air is pushed in little bubbles. The pin is 4.2mm for connecting to an air pump. The top segment is cut in 45° angle, and you need to apply some heat after printing to bend the top segment and use it as water outlet.

Little support from base is needed for the pin. Print in transparent PETG is my recommendation to reduce the possible contamination. When printing with brass nozzle (most common), water it with some addition of tap water safe before placing into aquarium, to reduce the copper possibly harming invertebrates.