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I have been a long time lurker on this forum and have learnt a lot from past and present members who have contributed to this forum. Thank you. This is my first 'real' post and I hope this would help anyone who might be considering building a rack themselves. As requested by @Disciple, hope this helps you too. Just a bit of background on my experience. My only previous build attempt was for a stand and sump for a 4x2x2. It was my first build dabbling with staining wood and using silicon for sump baffles, etc. As you can see from the photos below, they are pretty amateurish but I am happy for how it turned out as a first attempt. Next step is to fit some doors to it. The stand was built following this video by King of DIY. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN4Y9AYuwcQ Anyway, this gives you an idea of the level of experience I have before I embark on my ambitious attempt to build a rack. Below are some photos of my 4x2x2, sump and stand build, and some of its inhabitants. Sorry they are not shrimp related and not of great quality taken using my phone. Stand and sump Filled up and planted. Display tank front view. Display tank side view. With background in place and tank inhabitants added consisting of altum flora discus, german blue rams, panda corydoras, cardinal tetras, otocinclus, red cherry shrimps, darwin algae shrimps and darwin red nose shrimps. Altum flora discus. Panda corydoras. German blue rams with their fry. I have browsed many build threads including some from here and have built on my ideas collectively from different sources. The specific post from @BlueBolts here: http://shrimpkeepersforum.com/forum/topic/1415-breeding-rack-no2/ has inspired me greatly and I would like to acknowledge that. I followed the DIY rack build as outlined here: http://shrimpkeepersforum.com/forum/topic/7063-diy-rack-for-under-50-in-under-2hrs/ The plan, materials, and costs This rack will be located in the lounge room so it has to be 'display-ish' quality and light from it must not interfere with the TV or be too blinding to people sitting around the lounge room. Also, no unsightly hoses/pipes are to be seen. I managed to convince the Minister for Home Affairs that a canister filter and chiller by definition, is not categorised as hoses or pipes, and would be in no way unsightly. The LED display from the chiller would provide subtle mood lighting, and the gentle humming of the filter and soft soothe whirling of the chiller fan would be therapeutic for lounge surfers, and would also greatly enhance movie watching experience with enriched sound depth and effects. Hence I received approval to have a canister filter and chiller located next to the rack. I used 5 x 5.4m long 90x45mm MGP10 untreated structural pine bought and cut to size from Masters for $83.75. I find Masters generally sells timber cheaper than Bunnings. Since I have both of them close to where I live, I selectively buy what I need from where it is cheaper. The frame is held together by 10-8 x 75mm zinc plated countersunk screws. I bought a box of 250 screws from Bunnings for $27.50. The rack measures 1390 x 420 x 2200 mm (L x W x H). The plan is to hold 2 x 2'x15"x15" tanks on the top and middle tier each, and a 4'x15"x15" hospital/quarantine/grow out/sump tank on the bottom tier. Each tank would be insulated by 20mm foam around the sides, back and base as I plan to run both tropical (28-30 degrees C) and chilled (22-24 degrees C) tanks on this rack. Plumbing for air and sump would be hidden within the frame. Please disregard the mess in the background. Still sorting out stuff in the garage after the move. From this: To this:

I have recently rescaped my two footer which i started this wonderful hobby with almost a year ago. It started as a iwagumi scape with shrimp but quickly became a shrimp tank lol. Due to this I decide to redo the tank over the last couple of months. Currently i have my Oebt colony, blue gene red rili culls and some chamleons. I will be dropping and posting the last of the rili's this weekend and bringing home some additional chamleon. Shout-outs to @Ronskitz for this awesome driftwood. @OzShrimp for some of the nice plants. @newbreed for the moss ledges really like them. I plan on adding a few more plants and mosses but pretty happy with it now. As always please feel free to give me pointers, advise and critique. Cheers.

My 'allocated' footprint in the lounge for the rack only allows a maximum depth of 450mm. In order to maximise tank size/volume, I would have to drill and sump from the side instead of the back of the tanks. The first challenge was to find low profile bulkheads to fit within the confines of the 45mm thick frame so I can keep all plumbing enclosed. Since I will be insulating the tanks with 20mm foam and allowing another 10mm clearance, I need to find a bulkhead and tee fitting that does not exceed 75mm long. The bulkheads commonly used for tanks are like this which is too big once you add on a tee fitting to allow to drain to sump. However, Bunnings sell another type of bulkhead that looks like this. Coupled with a 25mm barbed x 20mm BSP male threaded tee like this, I get a 20mm bulkhead with a 25mm outlet to sump and all this measures around 65mm. The female thread on the bulkhead also allows me to fit a stainless steel strainer to prevent fish/shrimps from taking a holiday in the sump. All images were shamelessly copied from the internet. All credit goes to the original owners of these images.

Very nice tank! I love the natural look to it.

On the subject of suitability, are you getting a cover/lid for the Mr Aqua 12G? Threadfin rainbowfish are known jumpers.

Close... but no cigar!

Be very precautionous with the tiger lotus. I moved one in one of my tank, and it didn't like it at all: the bulb started to rot. I succeed saving it by just letting it laying on the soil of a plant tank. The other which sat in my cherry tank and was never moved is trully thriving

Created this just for you Buck lol Thanks man Thanks Ineke Yeah I am going to get some more us fissidens and tie it around some parts of the driftwood. Got some trident fern I purchased off a member ages ago that I want to tie on it too. Maybe some more lava rock to create more hiding places too.

Looks really nice, will be fantastic when the plants grow a bit more. Love the OEBT.

The film has English subtitles. Here's how I did egg tumbler

Hello ppl :) My name is Andrzej, and I live in Poland Shrimp interested in since 2007. I currently have 15 aquariums with Cardina and Neocardina shrimps I have my fanpage on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SzopensShrimps And a channel on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/szopen2004 I also began to add subtitles in English for my films. An example of such a film: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFaf4-T1dyY7b2iL_pV7MLw-e3yexC7of Welcome :)

looks good mate! they're such cool shrimp! keep the pics up

second one is hygrophila pinnatifida, it can be tied to drift wood and rocks or planted in soil as you have done :) one of my favs atm and the first looks like a baby red tiger lotus? but thats a guess

Plants in 2nd photo are Crypts I think.

Just thought I'd start a thread on here to see what other member's Mr Aqua 12g Long/Bookshelf tanks look like. It seems to be a popular sized tank amongst Aquascapers, Fish and Shrimp keepers due to it's odd size. So I'll kick things off with some of the scapes I've had over the years with this tank. This was one of the first scapes I had with the 12g. The next I just added more driftwood and rhizome plants, some more Anubias, Bolbitis, Java Ferns, Moss. This is how the tank is now, but not for much longer as I'll be doing another re-scape of the tank over the next month or two. The whole time I've had the tank I've had shrimp in there, Red Cherries, Yellow Cherries, Crystal Reds and later Chameleons and Darwin Algae, fish have been Neon Tetras, Peppered and Albino Corydoras, have also had Clown Loaches (goodbye Red Cherries), Rainbow Sharks, Common Bristlenose, but at the moment is just a variety of Shrimp. New re-scape will be a Chameleon Shrimp and Threadfin Rainbow tank, I plan to keep the re-scape this way for awhile, I need to learn to leave things as they are, haha.

Hi welcome to SKF great to have you here. Impressive list of shrimp too

freaky red eyes Juvenile, sorry poor picture but you can see it starting to colour up.

Actually My brother has been cycling a 60ltr tank and he will be getting some natives. His wife wants some yellows to go in there too. Spreading the shrimp love through the family.