Shrimp Rack

[lodo]

As some people here know, me and my partner are a bit fish crazy.

We were going to buy a rack, but the seller sort of messed us around a bit, so we have a new plan to build our own custom racking.

Looking for peoples ideas/advice on what has and has not worked for them.

Things we have access to:

• Custom built tanks
• Tank Drilling
• Basic knowledge of plumbing
• Electrical knowledge
• Soon plenty of money to make it happen.

Our fish room/shed is the garage, so we are planning to attach a chiller to the system as summer we are a little worried for.

Plan is to work with our current shrimp, mostly mishlings, have a few from someone who was working towards pinto's, and a mix of cherry colours.
Currently they are in 1ft cubes each, all filtered and heated seperatly.

Throw your ideas at me now :)

 

 

[petfish]

have a look through "shrimp tank setup's"  i have a thread in there of my biuld called CHERRY LANE.

[Ace027]

Here's my current setup mate, consist of 3 standard 2ftr divided into 2, it runs a sump, UV filter and Chiller. 

 

 

[newbreed]

Great rack write ups in the Shrimp Tank Journal section. Also a great plumbing write up in the Library too!

Exciting time setting up new tanks! Even if you already have many going!

[Jenbenwren]

Here's my current setup mate, consist of 3 standard 2ftr divided into 2, it runs a sump, UV filter and Chiller. 

 

 

I love the look of your set up Ace027, did you build the cabinet yourself?

[fishmosy]

Pretty impressive setup mate.

[Squiggle]

I've got a little setup you might want to take a look at, lol.

http://shrimpkeepersforum.com/forum/index.php/topic/3075-my-new-rack-tanks/

[Jenbenwren]

I've got a little setup you might want to take a look at, lol.

http://shrimpkeepersforum.com/forum/index.php/topic/3075-my-new-rack-tanks/

You're 'little setup' is awesome Squiggle. I can only drool over the pics and dream of the day I have enough room (and twist my halfs arm enough or we decide to part company) to setup anything even close to yours. But at the moment I have 6 x 2ft tanks (that me cost next to nothing) sitting out the back & a partner that keeps changing his mind over whether he will or won't let me set up a 3x2ft rack at our place depending on his mood. So I have to plan, design & build something myself, thats strong enough, 'looks like a display piece of furniture' and I know very little about carpentry other than how to use & maintain the tools. Ace027's rack has given me good general idea of what I'm going to build and I've been spending hours on Google trying to work out the best way to go about drawing up the plans and building something similar

[Disciple]

You're 'little setup' is awesome Squiggle. I can only drool over the pics and dream of the day I have enough room (and twist my halfs arm enough or we decide to part company) to setup anything even close to yours. But at the moment I have 6 x 2ft tanks (that me cost next to nothing) sitting out the back & a partner that keeps changing his mind over whether he will or won't let me set up a 3x2ft rack at our place depending on his mood. So I have to plan, design & build something myself, thats strong enough, 'looks like a display piece of furniture' and I know very little about carpentry other than how to use & maintain the tools. Ace027's rack has given me good general idea of what I'm going to build and I've been spending hours on Google trying to work out the best way to go about drawing up the plans and building something similar

Good luck

 

I feel like I am in almost the same situation as you are. The options you can have in the racks are a bit overwhelming sometimes haha.

[Jenbenwren]

Thanks Disciple and hope you have a lot of luck with yours to.

I'm going to divide the three tanks for the rack in half and seperate the different groups of shrimplets our Mischlings have had. Black/blue male 1 stripe male KK with female CBS type Misch, Ruby Red KK (not sure if male or female yet) and crs type Misch, pandas, Snow-white Misch shrimplets and some look like they may be getting some blue coloring so possible BBs, Tibees, and still have to wait for our Extreme KingKong to grow up to see where it goes.

[Squiggle]

Thanks for the compliment Jen, you should have a look at the DIY rack I did for under $50 in less than 2hrs, definitely a great base to start with in your situation, then you just have to decide what you want the outside to look like & go from there. whether you cover it in black corflute velcroed onto the frame or put some stylish timber panels on it, it's a good solid design & very easy to make.

 

http://shrimpkeepersforum.com/forum/index.php/topic/7063-diy-rack-for-under-50-in-under-2hrs/

[Jenbenwren]

Thanks Squiggle, I'll check it out now :-)

[Jenbenwren]

It is a great base to work off of, and with a few modifications it's just what I needed to point me in the right direction to get started.

The frame will be 4 tiers high and finished off with stained timber panels & trim. I'll use 900x900 posts for the outer uprights of the frame and also maybe for the bottom tier. The bottom tier will be made into a cupboard to hide the sump, pumps and bits. If I attach extra 900x900's, cut to the size of the cupboard, and attatch them to the outer sides and front of the frame, I can cover it and the bottom cupboard/1st shelf for the first tank a bit wider and longer than the shelves the shrimp tanks will sit on. If that makes sense lol

[Squiggle]

Lol, 900x900 is some pretty thick timber, 70x35 should be enough & make sure you get M10 rated timber, that stuff is what chippies use on the bottom storey when building a house, should be enough to hold a few tanks, lol

[Jenbenwren]

I thought 900x900 was overkill. I showed the other half and one of his mates the plans I'd come up with on Sunday night, (buying us a good bottle of bourbon with some of the cash from the RCS I sold really helped change his attitude a lot). They don't believe that 2x4 (900x450mm?) M18 structural pine I planned to use would be strong enough and that I'd need to use 900x900. They don't believe M18 structural pine is strong enough and I need to use Oregon instead, even after I showed them everything I'd printed off the net stating otherwise they still disagreed. But I reckon I know at least 20 times more about truck driving and mechanics than the 2 of them put together know about wood and carpentry lol.

[Squiggle]

Lol, 2x4 is 90mm x 45mm, 900mm is 90cm or roughly 3ft, hence why I said that's some pretty thick timber.

M10 is plenty strong enough, but if you are worried then M12 will be better, M18 will definitely be overkill.

[buck]

yeah i was going to say you might as well use railway sleepers haha

[Jenbenwren]

Rofl.

After drawing up a few pics and seeing how tall it'll be, I've decided to build a 3 tier 4ft+ rack with 2x2ft divided tanks on two tiers and a cupboard on the bottom to hide everything instead.

[Jenbenwren]

OOPS!! Rofl after just rereading this topic and reading the timber widths I'd typed. 900 should'be been 90 & 450 should've been 45. The boys threw me way off telling me 900x900, even though I was picturing 90x90, when we were talking about it and I guess the numbers stuck. The bourbon wouldn't have hoped with that either lol

Edited November 13, 2014 by Jenbenwren

[Squiggle]

It never does, lol

[Jenbenwren]

Think I might have to start a journal, even though it's going to be a while between updates and finishing it, so I can hopefully maybe get some much appreciated advice and recomendations from other members instead of hijacking other members threads, which I only just realized I was doing. Sorry

[lodo]

Thought I would find this to update. Rack is still a work on progress.

6 tanks out of 20 drilled.

Plan to get some pipe work this weekend, powerheads next weekend, then the rest of the pipework following.

Plan is 2 powerheads per 10 tanks.

One 3000l per hour each sump, and one 500l per hour.

500l will turn over just the k1 hel x media, while the 3000l will run the 10 tanks each.

Reason for that is one rack will be fish. One shrimp. so if we medicate anything no risk of killing bacteria.

Anyone with thoughts or ideas, if I'm doing anything wrong let me know

[lodo]

Starting to come together now.

Plumbing fittings on 4/10 tanks.

This weekends job is to do the other 6.

Soil in 4 tanks being cycled.

Hardest part for us is all tanks are full on the rack, so it's musical tanks until all shrimp are in tanks, then we can turn the sump on.

Photos will follow today

[lodo]

Also to add, our 10 shrimp tanks are most likely going to be

Black cherry, yellow cherry, blue cherry, prl project, pbl project,

Red mischling tank, black mischling tank, red fancy tigers, black fancy tigers, spotted head pinto

[ineke]

I hate to tell you this but unless you are doubling up cherries and others you won't have enough tanks!!!!!!!    

You need a couple of growing out tanks especially for the pure line shrimp. You will only want the best of the babies and the pesky little boys are very precosious at a very early age!!

 

Sounds like you are coming along really well. Look forward to the pictures!