epiphany Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 For the shrimp you'll either want a sponge prefilter or a stainless steel one. I'm not sure of any vendors in Canada that sell the steel prefilters but they do look a lot nicer and don't clog up much. Where did you get the light and how much was it if you don't mind me asking? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremoose Posted February 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 For the shrimp you'll either want a sponge prefilter or a stainless steel one. I'm not sure of any vendors in Canada that sell the steel prefilters but they do look a lot nicer and don't clog up much. Where did you get the light and how much was it if you don't mind me asking? http://www.aquatraders.com/Default.asp is where I got the light setup, really good price (although I can't remember it off the top of my head). I think I'm going to go ahead and order the stainless steel prefilter, never seen that before. I'm worried that using a spongy prefilter would ruin the mechanical filtration for the tank and I'd constantly be prying gunk off of it. Thanks for the heads-up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvision Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 A sponge on the intake in a shrimp tank is perfect, IMO. Shrimp will graze on it, and it GREATLY reduces filter maintenance. If you run a sponge on your filter intake, that IS your mechanical filtration; just fill your canister w biomedia. Rinse the sponge under the tap at each water change and you're set. You can get black sponge at Big Al's or AquaGiant, I believe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epiphany Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 A sponge on the intake in a shrimp tank is perfect, IMO. Shrimp will graze on it, and it GREATLY reduces filter maintenance. If you run a sponge on your filter intake, that IS your mechanical filtration; just fill your canister w biomedia. Rinse the sponge under the tap at each water change and you're set. You can get black sponge at Big Al's or AquaGiant, I believe. That's actually a really good point. In my 10 gal tank I have some of the Black sponge over my intake. Just cut a square of it and zip tied it on there. I've just clean it out a not of I notice my flow slowing down. Shrimp do seem to love it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremoose Posted February 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 (edited) A sponge on the intake in a shrimp tank is perfect, IMO. Shrimp will graze on it, and it GREATLY reduces filter maintenance. If you run a sponge on your filter intake, that IS your mechanical filtration; just fill your canister w biomedia. Rinse the sponge under the tap at each water change and you're set. You can get black sponge at Big Al's or AquaGiant, I believe. I will probably end up running a sponge (although I ordered the stainless steel prefilter to see what that's all about as well). Everytime I look into my current shrimp tank there is about 10 little shrimplets laying on the sponge. Edited February 23, 2012 by jeremoose Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremoose Posted February 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 By the way: thoughts on powerhead placement? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremoose Posted February 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 Update already. A couple fixes on stuff I said earlier: the light fixture actually has 4x18w T5HO bulbs not 4x24w T5HO bulbs and I forgot that it has 4 blue LED's acting as moonlights built in! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvision Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 Are you going to feed your CO2 into the powerhead? If so, you may want to try to position it lower in the back and point it toward the middle to disperse the CO2 throughout the tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvision Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 If the moonlights run when the main lights are off, maybe just go w 2LEDs if you can - that looks pretty bright! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremoose Posted February 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 Are you going to feed your CO2 into the powerhead? If so, you may want to try to position it lower in the back and point it toward the middle to disperse the CO2 throughout the tank. Okay sounds good. I will do a mock-up in the morning and see if it's what you had in mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremoose Posted February 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 If the moonlights run when the main lights are off, maybe just go w 2LEDs if you can - that looks pretty bright! I was thinking the same! I will have to learn a bit about electrical if I need to cut 2 LED's out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epiphany Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 If the moonlights run when the main lights are off, maybe just go w 2LEDs if you can - that looks pretty bright! I was thinking the same! I will have to learn a bit about electrical if I need to cut 2 LED's out. Couldn't you just cover some of the lights with electrical tape or something? Then later on if you wanted full strength moon lighting it's easy to do and then you're not having to open the fixture or anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremoose Posted February 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 If the moonlights run when the main lights are off, maybe just go w 2LEDs if you can - that looks pretty bright! I was thinking the same! I will have to learn a bit about electrical if I need to cut 2 LED's out. Couldn't you just cover some of the lights with electrical tape or something? Then later on if you wanted full strength moon lighting it's easy to do and then you're not having to open the fixture or anything. Good call. Simple and easy to flip back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epiphany Posted February 23, 2012 Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 If the moonlights run when the main lights are off, maybe just go w 2LEDs if you can - that looks pretty bright! I was thinking the same! I will have to learn a bit about electrical if I need to cut 2 LED's out. Couldn't you just cover some of the lights with electrical tape or something? Then later on if you wanted full strength moon lighting it's easy to do and then you're not having to open the fixture or anything. Good call. Simple and easy to flip back. And if doing that makes it seem like too much of a spotlight effect you could cover half of each light or put something over them that only let's some light through Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremoose Posted February 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 23, 2012 (edited) And if doing that makes it seem like too much of a spotlight effect you could cover half of each light or put something over them that only let's some light through I likely won't even use the LED's to be honest, was just excited that it had the function just for the "wow factor" when I show people the tank at night. Edited February 24, 2012 by jeremoose Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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