I was going away some time ago for a week and someone was coming to feed my fish. To ensure the fish would get the right amount of food, I created this scoop that provides nice consistent doses. (I know it knocks a bit more food than just to level, but it does it consistently)

If it's any use to you , you can find the STL here (few sizes):

https://makerworld.com/en/models/2107008-fish-food-scoop-with-leveller#profileId-2279100

  • Don't you know 3D prints aren't food safe?

    /s

    parent

    Where did the food safe gang go?

    parent root

    Aquarium fish life expectancy is probably not long enough to worry about cancer etc. Humans live an anomalously long time for mammals, hence having a bunch of super long term health concerns like cancer risk, that aren't that relevant for a lot of other animals.

    parent root

    the question was meat more broadly, a few years ago anything close to food was ambushed by the food safe gang. Nowadays, they are a meme.

    parent root

    Clearly the give a pass on aquarium life, probably have a whitelist on fish mentions

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    I mean, even just a few months ago they were still raiding the comments en masse if a print might even get hit by the light from a kitchen. One dude posted a big ass salt holder that was only for salt he used to de-ice his driveway and he still got shit on and downvoted for it. A lot of other really innocuous prints that were even food-adjacent got the same treatment. I like asking, hypothetically, "If you were to weigh the print before it's first use and after a year of use, do you think the difference would be >0.1g?" Because if your worry is microplastics, you consume much more than that in a years time just from going about your daily life. It's just such an inane thing to worry about other people doing to themselves. But then again, this is reddit where people love to play the holier-than-thou health cops.

    parent root

    They starved

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    I think a lot of them migrated to /r/3dprintinggonewild and now harp about sticking things in various holes

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    Naturally that sub exists

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    And fish in the oceans are full of microplastics, so adding some to your aquarium fish only makes them more authentic

    parent root

    Also, dry stuff is far more difficult to contaminate than wet.

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  • looks great. curious why you narrowed the "scoop" space rather than shorten it (mostly to make it easier to clean). are there other requirements for the scoop?

    parent

    I must admit I have not thought of cleaning at all. I don't clean mine. It's a dry food and is used every day so it didn't cross my mind. I will add that my fish are alive and well !

    parent root

    depending on the modeling software and how it was constructed, it might have been easier to just make it more narrow.

    Happens to me a lot in openscad where I accidentally artificially constrain myself.

    So for something like this, the scoop punch out is probably just a pill subtracted from the handle. In my workflow, I would have just lowered the overall scale to achieve lower volume. I might consider shortening it with just a 1 dimensional length-scale change but then I don't get to keep the perfect semi-spheres at the ends.

    parent root

  • Just making sure aquarium fish get the same microplastics ocean fish get.

    parent

  • I have made the mistake of having someone else feed my fish 🤣

    parent

    For the work tank and when I go on vacation I pre-measure little vials out so they can't accidentally do too much and its easy so they will actually do it.

    parent root

    I do this for my dogs too, we got some cheap deli to-go containers and we label them with dry erase markers for which dog/day/meal it is:

    • Dog1 Fri AM
    • Dog1 Fri PM
    • ...
    • Dog2 Sun AM
    • Dog2 Sun AM

    This also lets us add their various pills into the appropriate meal, so we don't need to worry about elaborate instructions.

    parent root

    What happens if you over feed fish?

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    The uneaten food breaks down into ammonia and nitrite that kills them

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    RIP little fishes. 🐠👻

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    We hired a dog sitter one time. He came over I showed him how much we feed the dogs, and then even wrote instructions. It was a 2-cup pyrex measuring cup and the dog got two cups at each meal. Well the dog sitter that that meant two measuring cup fulls. When we came home there was food still in their bowls (which there never was). Dogs ate good for a few days.

    parent root

    same. came back from vacation while someone i trusted watched my pets and there was like a handful of fish food floating at the top of my tank. "just a pinch a day" I said. Never again. Luckily everyone survived after skimming as much as I could off the top and doing a heavy water change.

    These days I have little ziploc baggies I portion the food out into. I tape them to the tank with the day of feeding clearly labeled on the bag. Haven't had an issue since.

    parent root

  • Hello, I like it, I'm printing it right now! 

    parent

  • Have you wetted your filament scoop yet?

    parent

  • It's half empty after leveling it. Not functioning well.

    parent

    I'm sorry if it doesn't work for you. Sometimes if the flakes are bigger it takes out more than just level it, but from my experience it does it consistently, so it should always leave the same amount of food in the scoop. That was most important for me as I knew my neighbour wouldn't overfeed my fish when I was away.

    parent root

  • this seems like one of those things no one asked for, but someone had fun designing 😆

    parent