My shrimp/invert rack system

[milalic]

The Beginning

I have been working on these racks for quite sometime with help of Nikolay, Nathan and others. I have decided its time to share it with others. I will go through materials as much as I can and why I did it this way and not some other way. Hope to see questions, comments, etc.


So I got interested in shrimp at the beginning, then the snails came and then the crayfish. So I decided to turn my house study into an invert room.

To have a taste of it, I bought a 75G tank and two 10g tanks to try it out.
The three of these tanks are part of the setup. The 75G tank might be taken down soon, but not sure. First shrimp were cherries, then tigers, and CRS. From the crays I have had the orange dwarf ones and the orange-brown.

The idea of the rack came on a couple of converstaions with two friends. Until I decided to go ahead with the idea.

The Rack

For equipment I went with sponge filters, 100W heaters, one dolphin pump for one of the racks, a couple of old pumps for the other, shop lights, natural gravel and some garnet gravel Nikolay gave me which is kind purplish in color.

The rack assembly was pretty easy. To put the tanks in the shelves we decided to go with a piece of insulation styrofoam cut to the size of the shelves like in the picture below:



I started putting the tanks in the shelves:



After putting tanks in one rack. I filled two of them to see if there was any bowing at all. I saw the shelve bowing and the tanks almost touching each other on the sides.

A friend gave us the idea of using some plywood below the insulation material so it would not bow. We tried this and it still bow but a little less.

So my friend and I brainstorm through some ideas and he came with the idea of using a metal rod(pipe) to push the shelve up. So we drill a whole in the middle of all the plywoods and insulation boards. Then the pipe was cut to the desire size and trimed so it will fit.



This is how it looks from underneath:








This helped a lot and solved 99% of the bowing issues.

Setting the tanks and other things

Here are some pictures of when I was setting up the tanks. You can see the type of sponge filters, heater and gravel that I used in most of the tanks.


This rack currently has 6 rimless tanks:




This one has 4 rimless tanks and the two 10G tanks:




There is some reflections in the pictures, but they are the only ones that show them while setting them up.

Shots of the tanks and Final Racks

Here are some close up pictures of the tanks:





Here I am testing a computer fan for when the weather gets hot. It will lower the water temp in one tank 5F. It does evaporate water faster, but not that bad if you do weekly water changes.



The final Racks look like this:(will update them with better pictures later)





All in all, I have 12 tanks in the racks and the 75G tank beside them

Problems/solutions

All tanks have moss in them, different types of moss. All have gravel, most of them heaters and all of them have sponge filters. I do weekly water changes.
I keep snails in all tanks.

SOme problems I have encountered or might encounter:

1. humidity: With so much water evaporating I was having humidity problems in the room. I bought a dehumidifier and problem solved.

2. Water changes: You can imagine that doing water changes takes some time with so many tanks. I only change 20% of the water in each tank. I reconstitute my water from RO water to the desire level and ph by using seachem equilibrium and tap water. It is not very easy, but I have some inverts that need aicid water while others need hard water. To change the water I use a bucket, water pump for a fountain, a python hose. I usually divide the water changes in two days. One for the ones with acidi water and the other for the ones with hard water.

2. Noise: There is some noise out of the pumps and the dehumidifer. It is barely noticeable. I close the study at night. Make sure to buy an air pump that does not make lots of noise. I recommend the Dolphin pump.

[milalic]

Blue tiger shrimp



Bumble bee shrimp





Yellow shrimp




I will post more pictures and things later. Hope to see comments/questions and hope this helps people.

-Pedro

[badflash]

Nice!
Look into a flow through drip system. This is espesially important for the tanks low to the floor. Cuts your water change time to ZERO and keeps the tank parameters constant except when you need to do a major cleaning every couple of months.

[TKD]

I would also suggest some clear Plexiglas covers for the tanks as it will reduce your evaporation. Make sure you get the thicker kind as it will bow less.

TKD

[Janthina]

Man, i am loving those yellow shrimp. The set-up looks great--thanks for sharing it with us, i know many of us are dreaming of doing something similar. Maybe this will provide the enticement and knowledge to nudge us into it.

[Newjohn]

Hi milalic

That is a vey clean looking set-up.
Alot more pleasing to the eye, than my 2x4 Rack that I have

Did you make the tanks yourself ?

As badflash stated
A flow through drip system will save you alot of time.

Thank You
For sharing Your rack set-up
John

[RCSGuy]

Great rack system, and beautiful shrimp (especially the yellow ones)! Thank you for sharing

[Neonshrimp]

Nice setup ! It is great how you helped us to visualize it all step by step and had the problem/solution section. Wonderful looking shrimp

Thanks again!

[zapisto]

very nice .
thanks for sharing.talking about drip system , badflash do you have any recommendation.
i have drip system for fish , any difference beside the fact you have to better protect the overflow.

[badflash]

Pretty much the same. I'm still working on mine. For a 10 gallon system I'm shooting for about 1 gallon per day drip feed. Here is the overflow system I'm using:

I put a penguin reverse flow foam filter over the black part. This maintains a constant 2" head room on the tank. The drain line attaches to the Tee.

At that flow rate I can just use a carbon filter rather than water conditioner.

[zapisto]

Great,
My tank is already drilled so no major prob for the otherflow.

I also use RO so no prob there also.

my actual concern is for my Hard water species , because RO will be too soft for them.
i am testing now the waste water (bad ouput from ro unit) as water for some hard water species.
i have a 6 stage RO unit and will be great if i can use the wast water for thoose species.
rigth now this water look like good , no clorine or cloramine, so i will see what it does.
i am planing for a 10G , put 2g by day.

thanks

[ToddnBecka]

At that flow rate I can just use a carbon filter rather than water conditioner.

Are you planning to use the carbon to remove chlorine from the water?
I'm wondering how long it will be effective before needing changed, regardless of what it's filtering out. There is conflicting information/opinions regarding how long it's useful. There are also different materials used to make it, all with different pore sizes, filtering capacity, etc.
Would it be more cost-effective to use a reservoir of water treated w/conditioner for the drip system?

[ToddnBecka]

At that flow rate I can just use a carbon filter rather than water conditioner.

Are you planning to use the carbon to remove chlorine from the water?
I'm wondering how long it will be effective before needing changed, regardless of what it's filtering out. There is conflicting information/opinions regarding how long it's useful. There are also different materials used to make it, all with different pore sizes, filtering capacity, etc.
Would it be more cost-effective to use a reservoir of water treated w/conditioner for the drip system?

[badflash]

The carbon filter I'm looking at will remove the chloramine and leave about .75 ppm ammonia. The cartige is good for 20,000 gallons at the EPA limit for chloramine in drinking water. There is no need to impound the water as long as the flow rates are less than 1 GPM.

The ammonia addition should not be a problem as the addition rate is slow enough the bio action should take care of it with no further treatment.

This is by far the least expensive tretment I've found as the cartige is only about $30.

I am currently impounding in a 30 gallon can and using water condtioner, but this is a lot of work. The system I am going to just runs off the plumbing and needs to be changed once a quarter.

[ToddnBecka]

Ah, I was thinking of regular aquarium carbon, not a cartridge specifically for treating water. Sounds like a nice system, I'll be waiting to see/hear how it works when finished.