Weighted Print

[Rspraggjr]

I have a friend who has a saltwater tank. He wants his last name printed in block letters and sunk to the bottom of the tank. I thought of pausing the print along the way at some point and filling in the letters with sand, BB's,fine aquarium gravel and then continuing to finish the print. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Sounds like a fun challenge to me. I think from research that ABS does better in saltwater than PLA?
Thanks Bob...

[Bobbler]

ABS doesn't sound a bad choice at all. It's not toxic and shouldn't leach anything into the water - saltwater habitats are a fine balancing act (I ended up stopping at tropical fish personally as it just seemed to much work to me).

Fill with gravel, but maybe ask your friend to supply it in case he has a preference on type - different gravels/sands depending what they are made from can affect the alkalinity of the water make up. Alternatively they do "plant weights" which could do the job too.
Another option maybe to include an anchor of sorts - just add a brim to the bottom and that way it could be held down with the existing bed media in the tank.

[sasabs]

What I have done is make a thick base then paused when the infill was almost done and filled the base with lead birdshot. I then resumed printing and the shot was covered by the solid layer that filched the base.

[Todd-67]

Do not use anything metal in salt water aquarium environments. Make it shelled in 2 pieces and snap/super glue the front to the back after filling it with sand. Allow a small hole to let air escape. Saltwater inhabitants are super sensative to anything foreign in the water. I have 3 tanks.

[Nargg]

Correction to Bobbler's post. ABS is non-toxic at a room temp state, but toxic while heated, or in other words while printing. So ventilate well!

[raysspl]

Yes, ABS needs ventilation when in progress. A few friends of mine got some headaches while running it in their office without any proper ventilation.