Jump to content

Start of shrimp room


ineke

Recommended Posts

  • HOF Member

So we started on the first bench for my new shrimp room today. The frame work was 90 x 35 pine, the bench is 19 ml flooring chipboard. It has all been made to accommodate my height and injuries to make it easy for me to reach over tanks and behind tanks. The uprights will allow drawers to be positioned in the middle 2 sections and a shelf will be put into the other bottom sections. Everything has been painted black to keep it all matching- even the tanks have Black silicone:D
The bench will go all the way around three sides of the room with the bench under the window giving me work space for packing and water testing etc. I will have 10 x 24 " tanks = 5 each side (8 are Blue Planet and 2 just basic 24" with black silicone.
At this stage the lighting will be individual lights but a bench will be made over the top of the tanks which will have LED lights but not sure what type just yet. Each tank will be separate with 2 sponge filters and an airstone except the TB tank which will also have an Eheim 2213 as well.
I am using Beni Bachi soil for the Crystals and TB's and also trying out some Elos (think that's the name) which I was given to try -it works similar to Beni Bachi in the buffering and looks very similar. For the Cherries I am using Fluval Stratum which they seem to do well in. My plants are basically moss, java fern and some Sword plants- the swords only because my large plant has sent off so many plant-let runners it seems a shame not to use them. Water is RO and salty shrimp for all tanks (Sulawesi for the cherries until that runs out).
Hopefully tomorrow the other side will be completed and then the window work bench. I need to find something to sit the tanks on and will see if one of the rubber stores has something useful, any suggestions would be great.
The flooring in the room has been reinforced with steel beams sitting on concrete footings as this part of the house has wooden floors sitting on dwarf walls which have started to collapse so Alan replaced them with the steel framework.
I am a tad excited and hope I can put some pictures up of the room finished and empty tanks insitu by the end of the week.If there are any glaring faults with this plan please let me know before we make any big mistakes. The reason I haven't gone for a normal rack is due to back and neck injuries that don't allow me to work with my arms above shoulder height or continous bending and because I'm short the height of the bench makes working easier for me.
The room has ducted air conditioning and ducted heating plus there will be a ceiling fan installed so hopefully I won't need a chiller. It works in my other room but I didn't have TB's or Crystals last summer %7Boption%7D[url=http://s1293.photobucket.com/user/ineke24/media/2013-12-16140719_zps26d1ee3c.jpg.html]2013-12-16140719_zps26d1ee3c.jpg%7Boption%7D[url=http://s1293.photobucket.com/user/ineke24/media/2013-12-16152022_zpsf9d43ca7.jpg.html]2013-12-16152022_zpsf9d43ca7.jpg%7Boption%7D2013-12-16155738_zps5f133b20.jpg%7Boption%7D[url=http://s1293.photobucket.com/user/ineke24/media/2013-12-16155720_zps34f0ef7e.jpg.html]2013-12-16155720_zps34f0ef7e.jpg

Edited by ineke
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • HOF Member

Thanks guys :D really looking forward to filling those tanks. I will have 7 empty tanks in my other room when the shrimp are moved wonder if he will let me have 2 rooms?????? Don't hold much hope maybe a step too far.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Super cool……don't forget the wall space for the shrimp posters :-) Looking fwd's to the updates.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looks awesome Ineke, this must be very exciting for you, the only suggestion I have is to either make sure the chipboard is waterproofed or sealed, or use some 16mm-19mm ply cause if the chipboard gets water in it(which it will over time, spills etc) it will start to delaminate & eventually need replacing & this could be a very difficult process. :encouragement:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • HOF Member

The chipboard has been sealed thanks Squiggle plus it will have an edge trim sealed with silicon so hopefully that will stop any problems. My main issue at the moment is what to use as a base for the tanks to sit on. I prefer to get a full length base rather than individual bases. Will look into that this week. Clark rubber sell a rubber base in rolls but not sure if that will work , it may not have enough give?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • HOF Member
Looks AMAZING Ineke can't wait for another tank visit :D

You don't need an invitation the door is open anytime:encouragement:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • HOF Member

Great thanks Jay I will look into that tomorrow . That's black and also if I can get it wide enough a water barrier as well:encouragement:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lookin good Girl and you are going to get done way before me, so I am going to be looking at yours very jealousy.

That rubber works a treat Ineke, to make life easy stick it down with silicone then it will stay put and have extra water resistance for you board

Did you paint the walls with mould proof paint?

Bob

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • HOF Member

No Bob but the room is well ventilated and I have had no problems in my other room which has been going for 12 months now and it has 8 tanks of various sizes in it. I hadn't given it a thought actually so hopefully it shouldnt be a problem. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • HOF Member

We are 1 length of wood short so will have to go to Bunnings tomorrow , then paint it but hopefully by the afternoon the bench on the other side will be up. I am still trying to get some rubber matting to go under the tanks. Clark rubber didn't have anything suitable so need to check out another place or resort to polystyrene sheeting but not too keen on that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We are 1 length of wood short so will have to go to Bunnings tomorrow ' date=' then paint it but hopefully by the afternoon the bench on the other side will be up. I am still trying to get some rubber matting to go under the tanks. Clark rubber didn't have anything suitable so need to check out another place or resort to polystyrene sheeting but not too keen on that.[/quote']

Why not paint the polystyrene black ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good idea, just gotta make sure the paint is safe for polystyrene cause otherwise it will eat away the foam. :victorious:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • HOF Member
Why not paint the polystyrene black ?

Good thinking thank you . Apparently water based paint is ok

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah water based paint is the way to go but I would do a test piece first just to be sure. :encouragement:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • HOF Member

I had a visit from Eshrimp and his wife today and now have the makings of a semi- automated RO system. I have a bin to hold RO water to which my RO unit will be attached , a stop cock will be in the bin so it fills automatically as I use the water. To the bin is attached a pump which will pump the water to my tanks via a hose which will have a tap to adjust the flow. I siphon the old water from the tank via a long hose then when my tanks have all been siphoned I attach that hose to the hose from the pump and refill the tank . To remineralise the water ( once I know how much has been siphoned) I mix the salty shrimp in a syringe and slowly add it to the slow flowing water. It is so easy and so much better than me filling heaps of 2 litre bottles with RO taking up most of an afternoon. When it is setup I will take pictures and explain it again. I used this system when house sitting and it was so quick and easy. Thank you so much Emanuel you and Fabi are truly awesome:encouragement:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's all happening!! Can't wait to see more pics!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • HOF Member

It's getting so close I can't believe its finally happening. With the new water system it will be so good to not have to lug buckets and bottles of water and having nice neat tanks will be nice too after my mish mash of tanks I have now( but they have served me well:))

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

  • Join Our Community!

    Register today, ask questions and share your shrimp and fish tank experiences with us!

  • Must Read SKF Articles

  • Posts

    • sdlTBfanUK
      Thats a great photo, beautiful blue bolt, I hope it survived the molt without dropping the eggs! I think I can just about see some black dots (eyes) on the central egg but can't be 100% sure. I used to (and plan to again) do weekly water change of 10-15% but if you do too large or quick (not drip in new water) that would likely trigger a molt. What KH are they in, my new setup is sitting at (and refusing to budge) KH 3 and PH 7.5 so I may have to settle for neocaridina shrimp this time as opposed to the caridina I want, though not looking/deciding just yet, give the tank a bit more of a run in! Tap water here starts at kH 14, tds 320, when filtered goes to KH 0 and PH 6 but when put in the tank keeps going to KH3 and PH 7.5 despite 3 x 50% water changes???? You may be at 'maximum capacity' with only 20L tank especially if the tank is a cube type rather than shallow type?
    • beanbag
      Right now this tank only has blue bolts and golden bee (red bolts?).  The eggs start off all brown, but at the end, I notice that some are kind of a clear pink-ish color.  So I don't know if that is the egg color of dud or golden bee.  Picture of shrimp only about half hour before molting. The water is always RO + remineralizer, so it should be ok. The tank seems to still be on a "good streak" ever since I started the regimen of weekly water change, monthly gravel vac and plant trim.  The point being to keep the amount of waste low and removing moss / floating plants so that the nitrates go towards growing algae.  At one point, I had three berried females, but only netted about half dozen babies by the end, due to this early molting problem.  There might be about 30-40 shrimp total in 5 gallons, but still very few full-sized adults.
    • ngoomie
      Alright, I've done a bit more research on gentian violet's cancer-causing potential but I haven't yet done research on malachite green's to compare. But from reading the California propositon 65 document about GV (North Americans incl. some Canadians will recognize this as the law that causes some products they buy to be labelled with "known to the state of California to cause cancer", including the exact product I bought) it seems that the risk of cancer is related to internal use, either injection or ingestion. Speaking of ingestion, I think GV bans mainly relate to its use in treating fish/shrimp/etc. which are intended for human consumption, because of the above. And in countries where GV isn't banned for this purpose, it does seem to get used on various species of shrimp without causing any issue for the shrimp themselves (at least enough so for shrimp farming purposes). See the following: In February, the FDA Began Rejecting Imported Shrimp for Gentian Violet and Chloramphenicol (2022 article by Southern Shrimp Alliance) FDA Starts New Calendar Year by Refusing Antibiotic-Contaminated Shrimp from Three BAP-Certified Indian Processors and Adding a BAP-Certified Vietnamese Processor to Import Alert (2024 article by Southern Shrimp Alliance) Southern Shrimp Alliance and some other organizations have tons of other articles in this vein, but I'd be here for a while and would end up writing an absolutely massive post if I were to link every instance I found of articles mentioning shrimp shipments with gentian violet and/or leucogentian violet registering as contaminants. That being said, I know shrimp farmed for consumption and dwarf shrimp are often somewhat distantly related (in fact, the one time a shrimp's species name is listed that I can see, it's the prawn sp. Macrobrachium rosenbergii, who at best occupies the same infraorder as Neocaridina davidi but nothing nearer), but this at least gives a slightly better way of guessing whether it will be safe for aquarium dwarf shrimp or not than my bladder snail anecdote from the OP.
    • sdlTBfanUK
      I would hazard a guess that perhaps those eggs were unfertilized and thereby unviable? Did the eggs change colour, usually yellow to grey as the yolks used up, or any eyes in the eggs. Is your water ok, using RO remineralised and the parameters in range, as I have heard others say that if the water isn't good it can 'force' a molt? How is it going overall, do you have a good size colony in the tank, you may have reached 'maximum occupancy' as a tank can only support so many occupants.
    • beanbag
      Hello folks,  The current problem I am having is that my Taiwan bee shrimp are molting before all their eggs have hatched.  Often the shrimp keep the eggs for 40+ days.  During that time, they lose about half or so, either due to dropping or duds or whatever.  Shortly before molting they look to have about a dozen left, and then they molt with about half a dozen eggs still on the shell.  Then the other shirmp will come and eat the shell.  These last few times, I have been getting around 0-3 surviving babies per batch.  I figure I can make the eggs hatch faster by raising the water temperature more (currently around 68F, which is already a few degrees higher than I used to keep it) or make the shrimp grow slower by feeding them less (protein).  Currently I feed Shrimp King complete every other day, and also a small dab of Shrimp Fit alternating days.  Maybe I can start alternating with more vegetable food like mulberry?  or just decrease the amount of food?
×
×
  • Create New...