# Matt's Shrimp Rack



## MatPat

I started on my "Shrimp rack" back in late November by plumbing in a dual sink to my basement storage area (in the far right side of the pic). Just past the sink is a 44g Rubbermaid container for RO/DI water storage.

I then spent a Sunday afternoon/evening building the rack and getting it setup in it's current location. The Rack holds twelve 10g tanks, is 97" long and about 14" deep. The actual shelves are 11" deep. Nothing fancy as far as the construction is concerned, 2x4's and some MDF shelving from Lowes. With the help of duchessren (Renee), I managed to get it primed and painted on one evening. She was also a big help in getting the lights mounted.

Since all of my planted tanks get fertilized heavily, Renee also brought me some water from a couple of her tanks to get me off to a decent start. Between her water and my RO water the shrimp seem to be adjusting well.

The bottom four tanks on the rack (tanks 8-12) are Renee's. I offered to "rent" her some space on the rack while she works on the logistics for her move to Cleveland in return for the help ing getting the rack set up and some future babysitting. I have 4 more tanks available (once Renee vacates the space) but I do not have the shrimp for them, at least yet. Hopefully these will be for some better grade CRS once I get mine breeding well.

Anyways, for those who couldn't make the meeting here is a pic of my Shrimp Rack. It's not the greatest quality pic but it is the best I can do at least for now...I will edit or add another pic or two later when I get a chance to take some more.

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All in all, this has taken me about 2 months (and countless trips to Lowes/Home Depot) to get the rack in this condition. I still have to finish up the waste water plumbing for the rack and get a few tanks planted/filled with shrimp.

Starting from the top left, here are the current contents of the tanks:

My Tanks:
Tank 1 - Crystal Red Shrimp
Tank 2 - Snowball Shrimp
Tank 3 - Cherry Red Shrimp (empty, but will soon be planted and filled)
Tank 4 - Tiger Shrimp 
Tank 5 - Empty, reserved for Amano Shrimp
Tank 6 - Empty, 
Tank 7 - Blue Shrimp 
Tank 8 - New Bee Shrimp 
Renee's tanks:
Tank 9 - Ghost Shrimp, Amano Shrimp, Vampire Shrimp, and Bamboo Shrimp
Tank 10 - Empty, possible CRS tank?
Tank 11 - Empty, possible Cherry Shrimp tank?
Tank 12 - Empty, ?

I would like to thank Renee for all of her help in getting this setup. I don't think it would have been ready in time for the meeting had she not lent me a hand on several occasions!


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## Freerider

What is covering the intake of your power filters, looks like one of the hydor rotating things but on your intakes or is it a sponge filter adapted to the intake? I was expecting to see air powered tanks like in most fish rooms.

I like this setup, nice and simple. I am trying to convince my significant other that this is what we need in our spare room (we dont have a basement or it would be no question), but still no luck.


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## MatPat

The tanks all have Aquaclear minis (or 20's as they are now called) on them with Filter Max I Pre-Filters over the intakes. I don't like the sound of air pumps so I decided to go with the Aquaclear filters instead. I have both Blue Shrimp and Snowball Shrimp babies right now so hopefully the pre-filters will do their job. If not, I will have to find a very quiet air pump.


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## gnatster

> If not, I will have to find a very quiet air pump.


Kensfish.com

Dolphin air pump. very quiet and powerful to boot


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## Six

Matt, how much did you pay for the AC minis? Next time you need one or some, and you're able to come into Columbus, check out The Andersons General Store behind AA. They have them there cheap. They are not the new models and I'm sure the price is like that b/c no one buys them and the warehouse is overstocked. Anderson's isnt really the place for fish supplies.

Nice looking rack, Matt. I'm suprised you put the tanks long-ways. I like it and I'd personally prefer it, but I think when mine goes up, they're going to be viewable from the small end of a 10. We'll see though. I'll be watching your progress on how it's going.


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## Burks

Simply awesome Matt! I'm trying to convince my parents to let me use 50" by 14" of their basement to have six 10g tanks. Shouldn't be too hard, dad is a fan of tanks. 

I'm curious about your Blue Shrimp. Are they breeding true blue? Maybe someday I can support your growing habit by purchasing some of those lovely shrimp you are breeding. *hint hint*


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## PAINKILLER1009

Wish i could have made it. That would have been a nice first meeting but i ended up working 
Looks great keep up the good work.
Suggestion for tank #6 or #12 Caridina cf. babaulti (green shrimp). I would like to get my hands on some of them.


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## MatPat

Six said:


> Matt, how much did you pay for the AC minis?


Dave at Aquatics & Exotics in West Chester (Cinci) has them for $7.99. That's a hard price to beat  I appreciate the info though and I am sure some of the other Columbus folks do too. The next time I am up your way I will have to check out Anderson's.

You are gonna let me know if AA gets anything good in tomorrow right 



Six said:


> Nice looking rack, Matt. I'm suprised you put the tanks long-ways. I like it and I'd personally prefer it, but I think when mine goes up, they're going to be viewable from the small end of a 10. We'll see though. I'll be watching your progress on how it's going.


I was originally going to put them narrow side out on some steel racks from Lowes but I enjoy looking at the tanks too much to only see the small side I could have probably fit three times as many tanks on this rack if I would have built it with the narrow sides out.

If all goes well I may just have to build another rack to house more tanks but that may put me into Divorce Court. On the bright side of that, I will have some locally bred shrimp for everyone in the near future 



Burks said:


> Simply awesome Matt! I'm curious about your Blue Shrimp. Are they breeding true blue? Maybe someday I can support your growing habit by purchasing some of those lovely shrimp you are breeding. *hint hint*


Thanks Burks and I'm always willing to accept some "support" for my hobby! However, I don't think the blues will breed true but they are still too small to tell. They are only about a week old now and still whitish in color.



PAINKILLER1009 said:


> Wish i could have made it. That would have been a nice first meeting but i ended up working Looks great keep up the good work.
> 
> Suggestion for tank #6 or #12 Caridina cf. babaulti (green shrimp). I would like to get my hands on some of them.


It would have been nice to have met you but there will be other meetings 

The Caridina cf. babaulti are one of the shrimp on my wish list and I actually have them planned for tank #6 in the future. Tanks 9-12 will probably have some nicer grade CRS in them in the future also but for now Renee has those four tank spots for as long as she needs them. It's hard to find good help now days


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## redstrat

Matt, it was great to see your this rack in person I really liked the simplicity of it and how clean it looks. I've been working on an idea for something very similar but on a much smaller scale, like 2-4 tanks instead of 12. I'm just currious how far apart are your shelves, or really how much space did you allow over top the 10g aquariums for lighting and maintenance? Do you ever wish there was more space?

I can't wait to see the rack and your other tanks for that matter in a couple months they all look great.


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## MatPat

davis.1841 said:


> Matt, it was great to see your this rack in person I really liked the simplicity of it and how clean it looks. I've been working on an idea for something very similar but on a much smaller scale, like 2-4 tanks instead of 12. I'm just currious how far apart are your shelves, or really how much space did you allow over top the 10g aquariums for lighting and maintenance? Do you ever wish there was more space?
> 
> I can't wait to see the rack and your other tanks for that matter in a couple months they all look great.


Thanks for the nice comments Ryan and it was good to meet you Saturday.

The shelves on the rack are 24" apart. This gives me about 12" above each tank for maintenance. I originally thought about leving only 6" of space and having 16 tanks but that would not have been enough space to get my arms into the tanks comfortably. 12" is plenty of space above the tank at least for me and allows some wiggle room to raise or lower the lighting for the plants. I like the plants as much as the shrimp


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## redstrat

Thanks for having me saturday it was nice to meet the members of SWOAPE that were able to make it. I hope I can make it to more meetings in the future. 


24" was just what I had in mind for 10gallon tanks, I'm glad to hear its working for you. I dont see it in the pic but it seems that I remember some of your lights were close to the tanks while others are as far away as possible, do you notice much difference in these postions, I'm sure you do. I bet you get better coverage of light when they are higher but lose some intensity which could be good in some cases, its nice to have some control. Another question about your light fixtures, how much light are you getting from them? Would you rate these tanks as low/med/high light with your current fixtures? I like the low price and availability of the bulbs bulk packs at HD are a great thing and lighting two tanks for roughly $30 would be amazing


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## MatPat

davis.1841 said:


> I dont see it in the pic but it seems that I remember some of your lights were close to the tanks while others are as far away as possible, do you notice much difference in these postions, I'm sure you do. I bet you get better coverage of light when they are higher but lose some intensity which could be good in some cases, its nice to have some control.


The very top tanks have the lights closer to the water surface for now. Given their height, the light spillage goes straight into my eyes when near the rack. Having the lights on chains does give you some flexibility which is good since I don't use any CO2 on these tanks.



davis.1841 said:


> Another question about your light fixtures, how much light are you getting from them? Would you rate these tanks as low/med/high light with your current fixtures? I like the low price and availability of the bulbs bulk packs at HD are a great thing and lighting two tanks for roughly $30 would be amazing


The fixtures are $8 two bulb, electronic ballast Shoplights from Home Depot. Each light has two 6500K Phillips lamps (T-8 lamps) in it so I'm getting 64W of light spread over two 10g tanks. I haven't had this setup long enough to gauge the intensity of the lamps over the tanks. I'm afraic it may be too much but I can always remove a bulb from each light and see how it does. The chans definately give me some flexibility in the setup.


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## accidentaldog

Matt the shrimp rack looks great. I have a lot of cherries that I would be more than happy to give to you to start out or at least give you some fresh blood lines. Once you get the breeding going on your cherries, maybe I could swap with you also because I could use some fresh genes in my tank also. 

I doubt you remember me because I haven't been able to attend a meeting since the summer BBQ. I am the UC student from Indiana. My wife lives 3 hours away and I have been going back to see her most weekends. 

As for getting shrimp to you, if you want them, I drive up I-75 every-other weekend and I can easily drop them off. I think I might be able to finally attend another meeting this month assuming the date is decided relatively quickly so that I can plan accordingly. Just let me know.


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## redstrat

matt have you ever seen the Filtermax I prefilter sold online or really anywhere other than Aquatics Exotics in cincy? I'm hoping to find two so I can get my two 10gallons running soon.


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## MatPat

accidentaldog said:


> Matt the shrimp rack looks great. I have a lot of cherries that I would be more than happy to give to you to start out or at least give you some fresh blood lines. Once you get the breeding going on your cherries, maybe I could swap with you also because I could use some fresh genes in my tank also.
> 
> I doubt you remember me because I haven't been able to attend a meeting since the summer BBQ. I am the UC student from Indiana. My wife lives 3 hours away and I have been going back to see her most weekends.
> 
> As for getting shrimp to you, if you want them, I drive up I-75 every-other weekend and I can easily drop them off. I think I might be able to finally attend another meeting this month assuming the date is decided relatively quickly so that I can plan accordingly. Just let me know.


A Cherry Shrimp Swap one of these days would be good. I can always use some new bloodlines and I imagine a few other club members might be interested too.

I have some Cherries right now that I need to move into the rack but I'm slowly trying to get the two tanks water parameters similar. All ing ood time I guess and I think I do remember you...you brought the Guiness 

I'm still waiting to hear from Sean so we know if this month's meeting will be in Cinci or Columbus...


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## MatPat

davis.1841 said:


> matt have you ever seen the Filtermax I prefilter sold online or really anywhere other than Aquatics Exotics in cincy? I'm hoping to find two so I can get my two 10gallons running soon.


I got mine from Ken's fish online. I haven't seen them anywhere locally.


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## redstrat

cool i've never heard of ken's I'll have to check it out.


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## t2000kw

MatPat said:


> I got mine from Ken's fish online. I haven't seen them anywhere locally.


I've never seen Ken's Fish online before, either.

A question about the heaters here:

heaterlinks

there are two lines that look interesting:

the Proheat titanium and the Guardian heaters.

The Proheats can have a digital readout. Do these also have an alarm for out of temp range warnings?

Do either of these have a track record with any of our SWOAPE members?


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## AaronT

Oh man, Ken's is awesome you guys. Kens Fish Home of Quality Fish Food, And Supplies At Excellent Prices. Supplies galore at reasonable prices and his shipping is lightning fast.


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## t2000kw

Is shipping cheap, reasonable, or expensive?


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## AaronT

t2000kw said:


> Is shipping cheap, reasonable, or expensive?


Yes, he's one of the few places that uses USPS and he tries to charge only the cost to himself.


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## t2000kw

His prices look pretty good. I like the Pro-Heat titanium heaters in his online store. Both the digital readout models and the dial-only models still use a dial to set the temperature, and I'll bet that the digital ones are not superior in performance over the cheaper models. It's nice to see the LEDs, but the price about doubles for that convenience. 

Does he have an email address for questions? I didn't see a contact on the web site.


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## AaronT

It's there, just not as a menu option.

"If you have a question or need assistance in placing an order feel free to contact us at [email protected] or call us at 508-823-4043."


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## Freerider

Matt are you having problems with moisture in your basement since you have introduced the tanks? I want a rack of tanks and my girlfriend is concerned with moisture build up, so she wants it in the garage. Since i live in Canada it would be a pretty expensive construction project to properly convert a garage bay into a fish room. I am thinking about it, but it would be much cheaper to keep the rack in the house.


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## t2000kw

You could tell her it would help kep her skin young, fresh, and keep it from drying out. :heh:



Freerider said:


> Matt are you having problems with moisture in your basement since you have introduced the tanks? I want a rack of tanks and my girlfriend is concerned with moisture build up, so she wants it in the garage. Since i live in Canada it would be a pretty expensive construction project to properly convert a garage bay into a fish room. I am thinking about it, but it would be much cheaper to keep the rack in the house.


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## redstrat

you could also look into a dehumidifier it would probably be cheaper then doing it in the garage.


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## MatPat

Freerider said:


> Matt are you having problems with moisture in your basement since you have introduced the tanks?


No problems so far but it is very dry here. When first set up I had a small amount of moisture on the window that is directly above the tanks and maybe 2 feet behind them. That was very temporary.

I am having quite a bit of evaporation even though the tanks are covered. The rack is 10-15 feet from the furnace intake and there is also a main return for the HVAC system work in this room. Those two things may contribute to the lack of moisture in the room.



Freerider said:


> I want a rack of tanks and my girlfriend is concerned with moisture build up, so she wants it in the garage. Since i live in Canada it would be a pretty expensive construction project to properly convert a garage bay into a fish room. I am thinking about it, but it would be much cheaper to keep the rack in the house.


It may be cheaper for you to build a rack and install some sort of ventilation to the outside or at least install a dehumidifier if you run into problems with moisture. Water changes and maintenance would also be much easier if you can keep the rack in the house. With the weather we have been having lately, I can only imagine trying to keep a garage warm enough for fish/shrimp.

Chris (Cincy Cichlids) has installed some sort of booster apparatus that is normally used to increase flow for long runs of clothes dryer piping in his fishroom. It seems to work pretty well and you can PM him for some more info on the dryer contraption he uses. He may even respond if he sees this thread


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## redstrat

well Matt I did it, i borrowed your design for the rack and built one myself. I was really impressed by your's when I saw it at the meeting it really got me motivated to finally build one. Mine is much smaller than your's, holding and lighting 2 10gallon tanks and one 20H on top with its own lighting. I also provided a storage shelf below which is temporarilly going to be used as a bookshelf and printer stand, lol. I'm also building a new computer desk which will house all that stuff. I also beefed up the lighting a little because I have CO2 available for this rack, I squezed another lighting fixture in there for the two 10g tanks, so I have a total of 4 40w T12s above the two tanks. The 20h will probably just get a aqualight 65w CF fixture to keep it simple. I really like the clean design and affordability, luckilly since I saw yours I made it with one trip to HD and probably put $40-60 in it including the wood, shelving, lights, hardware, primer and a paint brush. Its still primer grey though, I haven't decided on a color yet. It seems very sturdy and I'm really happy with it so far, Thanks Matt!!! here is a pic for all to see.

Enjoy 

Front View









Side View


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## MatPat

Nice job on the rack Ryan! Looks like you have enough room for another 20H on top  I used a color very similar to the primer grey on my rack so it would match the shelving units I purchased from Lowe's 

Keep us updated with pictures as the tank grows in!


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## redstrat

I probably could squeeze one more 20H on top, and I may eventually do that, its just not in the buget right now. I'll definately have updates in the future once i get all the equipment for the three tanks now. I may leave mine grey I'm not really sure, I dont have a problem with the grey it just doesn't match anything in the room colorwise. I'm probably going to just paint it whenever I move, which will probably be late this summer.


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## CincyCichlids

What kind of basement do you have? If you have the Cinderblock walls, you may have issues. I've known a few people who end up with a lot of moisture on the walls... However, if you have a basement that is of the typical concrete style house (not sure if building is that much different in Canada), you should be alright. 

At one time I had ~60 tanks in my basement and had a ton of evaporation. I never had anything on my walls and very little on the windows. I did add a 4' ventilation booster to our dryer as we believed that the exhaust piping was too long and hindered the dryer (we found later the drying to be dying). So when we got a new one, I routed the dryer vent out the other side of the basement and now I just leave the other blower blowing out. I usually keep one of the basement windows cracked about 1/2" so that way there is more airflow.

Either way, just tell the girlfriend that fish are HER friends.. you could be out drinking Labatts with your buddies every night looking at girls at the bars... or you could be in the BASEMENT with the aquariums.


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## t2000kw

davis.1841 said:


> I probably could squeeze one more 20H on top, and I may eventually do that, its just not in the buget right now.


I believe you are in the Columbus area. When your budget allocation gets larger for aquarium stuff, and when you're on South High Street sometime, check out Jeff's Pet Center, not very far from the I-270 intersection. He deals with used equipment, tanks, etc. We bought our 100 gallon there for $60 (older style, thick glass, not perfect but not cracked, either), a nice iron stand for a 55 gallon for $30, and other good buys also.

It's worth checking from time to time.

Jeff's Pet Center 
3300 South High Street, Columbus, OH 43207 
(614) 409-0416


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## redstrat

t2000kw said:


> I believe you are in the Columbus area. When your budget allocation gets larger for aquarium stuff, and when you're on South High Street sometime, check out Jeff's Pet Center, not very far from the I-270 intersection. He deals with used equipment, tanks, etc. We bought our 100 gallon there for $60 (older style, thick glass, not perfect but not cracked, either), a nice iron stand for a 55 gallon for $30, and other good buys also.
> 
> It's worth checking from time to time.
> 
> Jeff's Pet Center
> 3300 South High Street, Columbus, OH 43207
> (614) 409-0416


Thanks for the tip I'll defiantely check them out, I can't beleive I've never heard of them before.


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## t2000kw

davis.1841 said:


> Thanks for the tip I'll defiantely check them out, I can't beleive I've never heard of them before.


It's a very small place. He does sell some fish, and though the inside of the shop is not real pretty to look at (neither is the outside  ), the tanks look healthy, unlike many pet stores' tanks. And they have other pets as well. Some reptiles (I think it's his niche), rats, a bird or two, maybe some kittens, but mostly fish and some equipment. I've even seen small discus in there. Not a large selection of fish, but worth looking at. (Not a Jack's, but the prices aren't, either!) Nothing in there will cost you top dollar. He had a sale on 55 gallon glass tops (Versa Top or a similar brand) and I think they sold for just over $25. Usually they cost more, even there. I hit it at the right time but now I wished I had bought more than one!

Some days there won't be much used equipment in there, and other times he has too much. Don't go there to sell him used equipment--he buys really cheap--but he doesn't sell for much, so it's a good place to buy used stuff from. He might also have filters and such but I never asked or looked. I've seen some people bring power filters in to sell him but I didn't notice if he bought them or not.

His food prices, like frozen brine shrimp, are much less costly than the typical shops but are the same brands.

The dad, who used to own the shop and seems to be there to help out, will talk your ear off but he can build a pretty nice tank stand for you if you want one or have an odd sized tank. He's good for some stories. I don't know if they are true or not--I'd suspect not--but they're entertaining.


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## milalic

MatPat said:


> The fixtures are $8 two bulb, electronic ballast Shoplights from Home Depot. Each light has two 6500K Phillips lamps (T-8 lamps) in it so I'm getting 64W of light spread over two 10g tanks. I haven't had this setup long enough to gauge the intensity of the lamps over the tanks. I'm afraic it may be too much but I can always remove a bulb from each light and see how it does. The chans definately give me some flexibility in the setup.


I had to remove one bulb from my shoplights in my rack. Low light plants still grow fine.


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## milalic

Freerider said:


> Matt are you having problems with moisture in your basement since you have introduced the tanks? I want a rack of tanks and my girlfriend is concerned with moisture build up, so she wants it in the garage. Since i live in Canada it would be a pretty expensive construction project to properly convert a garage bay into a fish room. I am thinking about it, but it would be much cheaper to keep the rack in the house.


I have humidity problems is the room I have my inverts rack. You can use a dehumidifier and it will solve the problem.


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