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New Shrimp Rack


jumpsmasher
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I'm a little unclear of your water auto top off, do you mind giving a bit of a zoom in on that?

Looks really sharp all the way around. Looks like a shrimp playground, with some of those stacked cylinders, what are they called?

Oh that's because they are not installed yet :P still testing a few different float valves at the moment but it will works similar to the system i have for my old rack;

I have two reservoir tanks on the top of the rack; one with pure RO water (for top-ups) and one with re-mineralized RO water (for water changes). I run a couple of lines using rigid RO tubing and connectors from both reservoirs to each of tank; each has a ball / shut-off valve to control the flow or shut it off and than use a "Y" or "T" connector to connect them to a single float value and is mounted on the tank

_1211876_zps7e8637f0.jpg

Normally the RO water line is turn "on" and the remineralized RO water is turn "off", so if any water lost to evaporation is replaced with RO to maintain the water level. During water changes I turn the RO water line off, drain some water and than turn the remineralized RO water on adjust the flow so it will drip in new water over several hours.

On this rack i am using the the float valve but not the tank mount brackets. Because of my choice to go with HMF filters and eurobraces, I got concept to make me some "tabs" on top of the eurobaces that would allow me to mount my float valves on the back of the tank and hopefully without getting in the way of the HMF filters. This also save me some $$$ as float valves by themselves cost a fraction of a complete top-up system like above with the tank mount. The tricky one is fit the right float valve that can be mounted vertically, clear the HMF filter, and be small enough to be discrete while being long enough to reach down to keep water level where I want it.

This is the mounting hole for the float valve in the new tanks:

_1211880_zps2eef2b9a.jpg

I have one that works pretty well but it is bit too big for my liking so waiting one a few more that are coming in the mail to test out.

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and those tube are just ceramic breeding tubes; It is designed to give the female shrimps a place to hide after they moult - breeding takes place right after the female moult and aggressive males can sometime kill females as they are pretty weak and vunerable during this time

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  • 2 months later...

How are the LED's holding up?

Pretty good; I don't have any high demand plants but both my mini pellia's and bucephalandra's are still alive and growing :p

I upgraded to a 400W power supply to power all the row of lights for both the current rack as well as the second 4ft section that is going up this week.

The beefier power supply also allow me go with the some of the newer higher density version of the 5630 LED (90 LEDs /m) vs (60 LED/m) . Will be testing these ones out on the back row of the top two levels once the other side is up

http://www.724light.com/super-bright-5630-smd-single-color-flexible-light-strip-5m-164ft-450leds-p-1298.html

Looks like there is a new "7020" LED type that is even more efficient and if the specs are correct, offers more lumens per W

http://www.724light.com/led-strip-light-smd7020-flexible-12v-strip-light-5-meter164ft-300leds-p-1432.html

I am getting pretty good at putting the strips together so I will probably be going this route for all my rack based lighting needs unless i need to grow demanding plants

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I was wondering how important having a waterproof coating is for this type of thing, if the moisture from the aquarium would damage the strings that aren't coated. What have you noticed?

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Well i put mine inside aluminium channels with a clear cover and I siliconed the end caps as well as the where the wires are soldered, so in my case probably not much. But if it is completely exposed it won't be a bad idea as the soldering pads (every few inches) would be completely exposed on the non waterproof version

Edited by jumpsmasher
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  • 5 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

What central air pump are you using and are you happy with it?

I currently have a Hi-blow 20 - probably one of the better central air pumps out there; quiet but a bit undersized if I have the air on my reservoir tank going full blast; I will probably be upgrading to the next size up eventually.

I also have an ALITA AL-15A as a backup; those big air pumps are a good investment when you have lots of tanks!

Edited by jumpsmasher
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  • 1 year later...
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