Award-winning German aquatics manufacturer EHEIM is celebrating its 70 years in the industry.
Eheim’s story began in 1949, when the young engineer Gunther Eheim founded his first company near Stuttgart, for the ‘repair and production of technical toys’ where he repaired and rebuilt model railways.
In 1953 EHEIM presented its first model trolleybus, which became a bestseller. The breakthrough came with a model railway water tower system incorporating an innovative watertight centrifugal pump with a magnetic coupling.
A spokesman said: “The idea of combining this special centrifugal pump with a canister eventually led to the development of a suction filter for aquariums.
“Aquarium water could finally be cleaned automatically and the first EHEIM filter system went into production in 1963. As early as 1971, 100,000 EHEIM aquarium filters were in use worldwide and ten years later they were being produced in a 10,000m² factory.”
New products followed swiftly and in 1985, EHEIM launched a range for the garden pond.
In 1993, EHEIM acquired the aquarium construction company Müller & Pfleger (mp) to expand into the aquarium sector, offering freshwater and marine aquariums. Its new service ‘shopDesign’, a shop-fitting service, was created for the pet and aquatic trade.
In 2002, EHEIM bought the Jäger company , famous for its Jäger adjustable aquarium heater.
Today, EHEIM offers aquariums and aquarium combinations for all tanks as well as aquarium lighting and control, internal and external filters, aquarium heaters, UV clarifiers, air pumps, flow pumps, skimmers, CO2 systems, mechanical, biological, adsorptive and chemical filter media, pond products, various cleaning accessories, automatic feeders, installation sets and, since 2014, food and water treatments.
Gunther died in 2013 at the age of 93, and in 2016, Ibrahim Mefire Kouotou, became the new managing director.
