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Hi Guys and Shrimperts! Having owned 3, 5 & 10G tanks (All Neocaridina shrimps), I've taken the plunge and decided to build a shrimp rack and with new tanks. Size of the tank is 2.5ft(W) x 1.5ft(L) x 1.5ft(H) and will be divided to 3 columns. The upper most tank will house my Cardina and the middle tank will be the Neo's and the lowest is either a sump or just going to leave the rack space with the chiller only (I am from Malaysia). Basically in total, my plan is to have 6 divided tanks (3 each divided from the 2.5ft tank) and that is the max. amount of tanks, I may start a new rack next time should I decided to expand. 2 different local shrimp stores has given me separate suggestions for the shrimp tank water system and need your expertise and advice to see what's best. I am not restricted by their suggestion since I did told them that I want to have a simple water flow without having to drill holes to the tanks, but I don't mind getting my hands on plumbing and DIY Overflow stuff. The drafts are below for your suggestions, I'm all ears. Thank you in advance!

Hello, So I've been drilling my 4ft recently to plumb in a sump I got, I guess the main issue is I didn't want an overflow box in the tank, I was planning to do like durso stand pipes with shrimp guards on them, how many holes will I have to drill to not need an overflow box? So far I have one 1" hole at water level with a bulk head, and thought just draining without a siphon it would take around 1500lph, but things haven't worked out like that. Ive been looking at the bean animal method among other things, but having trouble finding good links on different drilled setups. any advice appreciated as I'm pretty stuck now lol. I'm quite confident in drilling the glass now so extra holes isn't a real issue. Ive reached my upload limit so no pic sorry, Its one horizontal pipe at waterlevel with a T attached on the outside, pipe going up to vent and pipe going down for water to drain. Cheers

Hi all, I am in need some advice, I've no experience with plumbing whatsoever (with the exception of using canister filters with chillers if that counts) so please bear with me if my questions seem silly or obvious! I came across 2 cheap 4 foot tanks with holes drilled already in the base of them that I am hoping to use. There are only a couple of minor scratches here and there and the only damage is on a back corner where the bezel is chipped - I intend to silicone this inside and out to be safe. Anyway I have a few points that I'd really love help to address. - How best to plumb these 2 sitting at the same height and integrate a sump. - Is it feasible to use 2 eheim canisters with a my chiller connected to a sump? When I only ran one canister the flowrate was not quite enough and the chiller was turning on and off too frequently as a result. Do I have to just bite the bullet and fork out money on a pump instead? - Opinions on how best to divide the setup into several bays for different colonies. Currently I am looking at following Paul Minett's lead using tropical flyscreen which has less than 0.4mm aperture but he has told me there is still the occasional fugitive baby. Thanks in advance, once I actually start doing anything on this setup I will post the progress in a journal here. Once again NB I am totally clueless so I'd appreciate it if you could dumb down your suggestions for me :-) Love and peace Will

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

Anyone have or used and AquaEL pump? or know of there quality and reliability? I am about to buy a sump pump for my new TB rack and I am considering an Aquael PFN 10,000 (made in Poland) I only need about 3,000-4,000lph but I need to pump it to about 1.8m height which will reduce the flow. The Aquael has a cool feature of being able to reduce flow by reducing the electricity, rather then just restricting flow like other pumps. So for instance I can reduce it to 50 watts and it will give me 5,000lph (i think) which is roughly what I will be needing and if I want to add more tanks to the system I have the option to increase the electricity and lph. It's also a very power efficient pump at 100w for 10,000lph that's slightly better then the Laguna Max-Flo 7,600lph I have on my cherry rack. I am always looking for ways to reduce the power bill as I have a lot of tanks. So I am seeing a lot of advantages to this pump but it is quite expensive, $475 and my budget is stretched to the limit (ill have to put off buying the actual shrimp for the system for quite a while). I'm really looking for a very reliable pump with top end energy efficiency. So I am trying to find some info on these or anything in the Aquael range to gauge the general quality of this brand. Any input would be helpful or recommendations on other options/pumps. Thank you SKFers!