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So, it's been a long time coming but Rack 2.0 is almost ready to roll. The original eight 40cm cubes were picked up in April this year. Made by Justin at Subscape Aquarium. Each cube came with cover glass and one hole pre-drilled. So I once again went with the Rack-it system from Bunnings. 900mm beams, three 40cm uprights. Also spent my time gathering the plumbing fittings and accessories. Was easier getting small amounts staggered over weeks than at one time. Was easier to stretch the dollars this way. I used 20mm PVC as a return, and then T-pieces with a 20mm Tap attached. 20mm Hose was used from here. As Squiggle has suggested many times, I replaced the mdf shelves suggested with a 18mm Marine Ply. I had the pre-cut at Bunnings as I am rubbish at measuring and cutting. Underneath each shelf I used structural pine 90x35mm pieces cut to length. They slot into the brackets relatively easily (with the help of a rubber mallet) and provide direct support for the tanks, as well as providing a space to attached hooks for lights, hoses, cords, etc. Again, staggered picking up different essentials along the way. Foam (and structural pine) Hoses

Engineering the floor! Something heavy going on it ?

4 of these 4596261597.jpg[/img]

that's a bloody nice hole! looks interesting... who's going in that bad boy? ☠️

@OzShrimp - Yes been a little quite! Been a busy few months for me hehe. Shrimp have been mostly on auto pilot, love how easy they are to keep! I will try to get some photos this weekend. Have moved from tap water to RO water now. So far they are doing well, up until the point where I forgot to turn the filter back on after a water change.... Filter was off for 4 days in total, thankfully the tank is well planted and has floating plants, fixed this by replacing media with cycled media from other tanks and a bunch of prime and a lot more floating plants. Lost one of my adults which triggered the check for what is wrong, and the day after fixing the filter I lost a young adult shrimp (First generation offspring in my tank). Few days later my fans were unplugged... Tank got to 26 degrees and I lost a juvie. This is also fixed... Thankfully only those 3 were lost. I also did a water change without minerals in the RO water which brought down the TDS to 100 from 170. It was a 20% water change but effected much more then I was expecting! Which caused me to lose one young adult also. I was bummed and won't be doing that again!! So all in all, i've made a few mistakes which were entirely my fault! :( On a positive note, my biggest most productive female FINALLY got berried again the day I fixed the fans, i guess a drop in temp triggered some molting. Nice full tail too! I currently have 2, possibly 3 females berried. One of these is my first generation (in my tank) females, though she only has a small number of eggs but at least I have more females! So very happy about that. Have a few young juvies growing up still. Hopefully that is the end of my dramas with the tank so the colony can grow! At one point I had 10 adults, 10+ juvies, and 10+ shrimplets. Not sure on numbers at the moment as the tank is over grown with flame moss which I am goign to trim this weekend. But i see the adults and juvies often. Still love watching them go nuts and turn into fish swimming around the tank when a female molts. :)

Trying out a new home

All coming along nicely. I've added some seasoned material and half a dozen red ramshorn snails, and a treatment of "Aquasonic Bio Culture", which is said to be a cycling bacteria additive that actually works. Time will tell, I'm watching/testing carefully. Plants are responding very strongly to 6 hours a day of light, set on timer. Water is much clearer now, but certainly not finished and highly aerated with both an airstone and the filter box out let. I dropped the level to about 6cm from the cover edge to allow the light to fully reach the surface for the frogbit (which is taking off). If I wasn't having floating plants it would be fine filled right up. Camera didn't quite focus properly, I'll play with the settings more next time.

Update of the buce. Missing from picture is mini catherinae, an some lamundu mini purple. Have 4 new buce coming next week, being dark skeleton king, cascade king, red chilli, and one other I can't remember. Tanks almost out of space[emoji14]