Use a Pen to Increase Bubbles in Your Fishtank!

If you have a fishtank, it is likely you might also own an aquarium pump for enhancement of motion and relaxation of your tank. Most aquarium pumps sold have two outputs so that two different decorations may be used in the tank at the same time. I only have one such decoration, a Chinese Dragon. I also keep my diving knife in my tank, just so the fish know who's boss!

My dragon pumps out about 3 bubbles a second, but I thought I could get more through some creative engineering. In this instructable, I will show how I doubled my bubble output with the use of a single pen, some glue, and my soldering iron.

Step 1: Materials

This is a simple project, and you'll need the following:

1 Pen (Bic or similar style)
Aquarium pump with 2 nozzles
Soldering iron
scissors
glue
a short length of the hose from your pump hose

Step 2: Checking the Hose Fit

First, you need to take the pen apart. This is so you can check if the hose will fit the pen you selected.
You want to make sure that the hose fits snugly in the pen tube body before going on. If it doesn't you might have to glue the hose in or attach it another way. My hose fit snugly, which is important to keep pressure from escaping.

Step 3: Drilling for Oil (not Really)

Use the soldering iron to make a small hole for the cap of the pen to fit into. The idea here is you want the hole to be small enough to fit the pen cap into just barely.

Always solder in a safe environment, with a window open in this case because you will be creating fumes.