I used the float arms from H2O-Tools for more than 10 years without any issues. However, these are not available any more. Since I needed more buoyancy for my new setup, I got 2 float arms from 10bar (4,5 cm diameter)recently. One of them broke on my third dive day, they are cheap and not robust at all. Now I have buoyancy arms from UW-Lighting (https://ocean-photos.es/gb/buoyancy-arms/1399-uw-lighting-10-carbon-fiber-float-arm.html), they seem to be very robust and add even more buoyancy at surprisingly low costs.

Regards,

Jens

On 1/2/2026 at 1:32 PM, Architeuthis said:

=> I am thinking of mounting two Inon float arms (650g buoyancy each) "naked" to the sides of the housing and mount the single flash to the middle. Plus a Stix float belt to the macroport (583g buyoancy; https://www.uwcamerastore.com/stix-float-belt-sx-fb10) and compensate the rest with detachable floats to the arm on the middle flash.

I've been using these float arms from Mike-Dive (whom you might remember from the past) on my macro port for many years and I'm very happy with them.

On 1/2/2026 at 1:32 PM, Architeuthis said:

=> Is a float belt on the macroport a good idea or is the belt an obstacle, e.g. when putting the rig on the seafloor to get a nice perspective? Has someone here experience with using a float belt on a macroport?

Even shooting on the sea floor (which I prefer anyway) isn't a problem, as I simply remove two of the floating elements and position the resulting gap at the bottom.

19 hours ago, OneYellowTang said:

There were a couple of u/w photographers with this clipped to their rigs the last time I was in Anilao (in October). It was somewhat obnoxious on the boat (often covers up your rig strap on the boat - boathandler tempted to pick up the rig by this). Underwater it seemed to be out of the way when shooting, but does obstruct visibility over the top of our rig a bit (for those that hunt for subjects while holding a rig in front of them).

Also, you have to be careful about how you position that dumb valve, or the air just burps out (or I am doing it wrong - which wouldn't surprise me).

That said, and it's quite handy when you are testing gear and playing around with floats - I always carry this with me, b/c I lend my tray or video lights to divers in our group, and its an easy way to give them a rig that's easier to use when shooting. For the $35-40 or whatever it costs, its excellent value.

On 1/1/2026 at 8:44 AM, Dave_Hicks said:

It is tough to do better than good old ULCS aluminum grid arms with Stix Jumbo float blocks. They cost less than the Nauticam float arms and they WILL last a lifetime. They are pretty much indestructible. I am still using ULCS arms that I bought 20 years ago. Change the o-rings every decade or so, and you’ll be set.

I second @Dave_Hicks . Flexible, relatively inexpensive, and last for years.

I ordered some arms and floats from Temu.

2x 20(8inch)cm arm and four of the floats total of 35€.

Arms arent real high quality with treatment on balls deteriorating. The floats (175g each) feel real good. I dont like the porous material of stix, and these are solid.

All in all, about 60 dives in, im giving the arms 5/10 and floats 9/10.

That looks more like the material you get from Beneath the Surface (us brand) which I've found quite durable. I wish I could track some down in sheet form for a couple custom designs.

Can you share a link?

On 1/3/2026 at 7:26 PM, JohnD said:

There is also the Marelux flexi buoy:

Available in 400, 800 and 1500g of lift. Honestly, when I saw it I was half impressed by the idea and half amused by the idea. Okay, maybe mostly amused. I have never used one nor seen one in use and I cannot quite imagine swimming around with a big green bag floating in front of my face, but it is inexpensive and offers a lot of adjustable buoyancy.

I just can't see using the thing, but maybe someone here is familiar with them and can share their experience

I get one about 2 years ago but I have to say it's not so good as I expected. Especially when you are trying to adjust the buoyancy by squeezing it, if you squeeze too much air out, you have to tak off your mouthpiece and blow it again, so on and so forth, then you will give up to use it again...🤣

On the topic of float belts, I have had issues getting the Stix float belt to stay in place on a couple of Nauticam macro ports and requiring some DIY efforts to keep it still. I see that beneath the surface has different shapes. Anyone able to comment on those shapes fitting on Nauticam 60 (+ 20mm ER), 80 and 87 ports?

Edited Monday at 03:44 PM2 days by JohnD

1 hour ago, JohnD said:

On the topic of float belts, I have had issues getting the Stix float belt to stay in place on a couple of Nauticam macro ports and requiring some DIY efforts to keep it still. I see that beneath the surface has different shapes. Anyone able to comment on those shapes fitting on Nauticam 60 (+ 20mm ER), 80 and 87 ports?

I solved this with custom printed port floats. Pictured here are the port87 and port60+20 versions that I use most often. I also have a version for the port60 alone. They bolt into the otherwise useless M3 holes Nauticam uses to mount a plastic hotshoe that I have never seen anyone use. This provides a solid connection for the float. They are seamless and streamlined for totally natural handling of the housing. Dry weight is 200g and they provide about 350g of buoyancy.

The little fins you see on the bottom float on the left are "sacrificial" structures to take the wear and tear of sitting on the sand or boat decks without scratching or dinging the ABS plastic of the hollow float itself. I've been diving these for at least a year on many dozens of dives and tested to about 100 feet / 30 meters.

Very nice. I don't suppose you have extras lying around...😉

I have more or less the same as @Dave_Hicks but with flip but the idea is exactly the same

4 minutes ago, JohnD said:

Very nice. I don't suppose you have extras lying around...😉

Maybe, send me a private message.

Edited Monday at 06:41 PM1 day by Dave_Hicks

Another very exciting topic!

Over the years, I've used various setups and have now settled on Carbonarm's strobe arms and their floats. I also used Nauticam float arms for a while, but I've since switched away from them. I'm very happy with the Carbonarm arms, and the floats are excellent and extremely robust.

4 Floating-Rings provide 500g of buoyancy

Here you find the Floating-Rings
https://carbonarm.com/en/homepage-piu-venduti/128-floating-ring-kit-500-g-0806808287137.html

I also still have several old buoyancy aids from Mike-Dive in use, which I've had for ages. Unfortunately, Mike-Dive is no longer in business, and it would actually be cool to know exactly what kind of foam they were made of.

For my Macro-Port, I was inspired by Dave Hicks and his port floats. Unlike him, however, I didn't print a solid body, but simply "wrapped" various old Mike-Dive buoyancy aids around my Macro-Port. With this design, I get about 500g of buoyancy at the front of the port, and nothing gets in the way. With a suitable foam, you could even get a bit more buoyancy.

My Port-Float from the back with the Mike-Dive Floats inside and some Test-Foam.

Carbonarm offers a sheet made of their material, but it's not cheap. We'd need to find out exactly what kind of foam the solid parts currently on the market are made of.

Greetings from Switzerland,

Tino

On 1/3/2026 at 12:26 PM, JohnD said:

There is also the Marelux flexi buoy:

Available in 400, 800 and 1500g of lift. Honestly, when I saw it I was half impressed by the idea and half amused by the idea. Okay, maybe mostly amused. I have never used one nor seen one in use and I cannot quite imagine swimming around with a big green bag floating in front of my face, but it is inexpensive and offers a lot of adjustable buoyancy.

I just can't see using the thing, but maybe someone here is familiar with them and can share their experience

It seems a good idea and not expensive. It's interesting the way to vary the buoyancy during the dive if I well understood.

I usually dive in fresh water and I find a bit difficult to calculate how much reduce the buoyancy in salt / very salt water. Any suggestions are appreciated

Bye

In salt water your gear displaces approx 2.4% difference to fresh water and is more buoyant. So you’d need to reduce buoyancy by broadly 2.4%. That may possibly be so little in practical terms that it’s not worth bothering.

On 1/5/2026 at 10:51 AM, Tino Dietsche said:

For my Macro-Port, I was inspired by Dave Hicks and his port floats. Unlike him, however, I didn't print a solid body, but simply "wrapped" various old Mike-Dive buoyancy aids around my Macro-Port. With this design, I get about 500g of buoyancy at the front of the port, and nothing gets in the way. With a suitable foam, you could even get a bit more buoyancy.

My Port-Float from the back with the Mike-Dive Floats inside and some Test-Foam.

Tino

A very clever solution. Hide the ugly foam floats on the port and stuff it with buoyancy in a sleek wrapper! Genius!

What is the dry weight over the whole port float unit?

On 1/6/2026 at 1:39 AM, Dave_Hicks said:

I solved this with custom printed port floats. Pictured here are the port87 and port60+20 versions that I use most often. I also have a version for the port60 alone. They bolt into the otherwise useless M3 holes Nauticam uses to mount a plastic hotshoe that I have never seen anyone use. This provides a solid connection for the float. They are seamless and streamlined for totally natural handling of the housing. Dry weight is 200g and they provide about 350g of buoyancy.

The little fins you see on the bottom float on the left are "sacrificial" structures to take the wear and tear of sitting on the sand or boat decks without scratching or dinging the ABS plastic of the hollow float itself. I've been diving these for at least a year on many dozens of dives and tested to about 100 feet / 30 meters.

Hi Dave, could you share more details about your design, quite curious about the structure of it. I assume it must be a hollow but sealed to be waterproof, right?

57 minutes ago, flowdesign said:

Hi Dave, could you share more details about your design, quite curious about the structure of it. I assume it must be a hollow but sealed to be waterproof, right?

My 3d printed floats are hollow, mostly. Printed in ABS, 4 walls, 5% infill. Not sealed with any additional products or acetone smoothed. Not necessary. I have the printing parameters tuned well enough that the hollow body structure is completely waterproof and crush-resistant to a tested depth of about 35 meters. Trying to minimize dry weight against buoyancy.

I have been using a few of these across 50+ dives each and weigh them periodically to very they have not taken on water. So far, they are rock solid.

4 hours ago, Dave_Hicks said:

have been using a few of these across 50+ dives each and weigh them periodically to very they have not taken on water. So far, they are rock solid.

My experience is that over the time I had problems... 100 dive ok... 200 ok and one time.

I allways put epoxy over the 3D parts to avoid some water going in the piece.

I have an other difference I made the 3D model empty and only made a smal wall. The target is to have less weight.
In some case when the wall/structur is not strong enough --> I had some old float arm who break... ( water go in, and a big air bubble go up... 😱) but no more problem the arm didn't break in 2 parts.

I made on the place where the float breaked some reinforcement my current float have now over 2 year and 200 dives

Again thank you all a lot for the highly appreciated information and discussion. A great stronghold of accumulated experience here...

I have ordered now two Inon Mega M floatarms (650g bouyancy), a M67 lens holder for the arm and a Stix (FB10) float belt - to give some feedback...

I will report here about my experiences after using them several times (together with the new Sony 100m macro in Nauticam 125 macroport 🙂)

Wolfgang

P.S.: regarding detachable floats to regular arms I have a budget friendly, robust and well working solution since years, that I can recommend (just to complete the extensive list given here; e.g.: https://engelnetze.com/en/float-cd-250g-buoyancy-91x45mm-14mm-center-hole/?_gl=1*9egji4*_up*MQ..*_gs*MQ..&gclid=Cj0KCQiApfjKBhC0ARIsAMiR_ItEz88oErkMq8qYquHvv4Mkluy26ew0lhVHPCk1WFpcA_tkt0rloYoaAtB9EALw_wcB)

Edited 4 hours ago4 hr by Architeuthis

13 hours ago, Dave_Hicks said:

My 3d printed floats are hollow, mostly. Printed in ABS, 4 walls, 5% infill. Not sealed with any additional products or acetone smoothed. Not necessary. I have the printing parameters tuned well enough that the hollow body structure is completely waterproof and crush-resistant to a tested depth of about 35 meters. Trying to minimize dry weight against buoyancy.

I have been using a few of these across 50+ dives each and weigh them periodically to very they have not taken on water. So far, they are rock solid.

I took tim eto retrieve the 3D STL from my bloat for the Isotta H117 port