Logic and logistics

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Tacit Blues

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Sep 14, 2014
Messages
751
Location
Western Colorado
I've been thinking recently about setting up some sort of small RCS shrimp breeding project because they are so hard to come by in my area. I have some old equipment from a decommissioned tank (a nice stand and a sump filter), some space in the house, and even permission from my wife, so now I just need to figure out what I really want to do.

Given the dimensions of the stand (it was for an old tall 55 gallon tank) I've been thinking I could either set up a 40 gallon breeder and drill it to use the sump, or I could set up three 10 gallon tanks, possibly with matten sponge filters. Both ways have pros and cons with them, namely the lower cost and greater modularity of the three small separate tanks, but the bigger/more stable setup of a 40 gallon.

If I was going to breed for grade/different colors, the three tanks would be handy, but I'm worried about being able to keep up with the water parameters on three little tanks. If I did the matten filter thing it would be easy enough to drill a small overflow behind it and plumb them all to drain below, which would make it easier to do maintenance, but at the point you're buying 3x the hardware it starts to make the 40 gallon more cost effective, especially since I could mostly just use stuff I already have. But it wouldn't be as flexible.

So I keep going around in circles, not able to decide one way or another. If they made tanks that were 18" cubes that weren't $300 custom jobbies it would maybe simplify things because I could set 2 up side by side and I think they'd be about 25 gallons apiece, but $600 kinda blows the budget right out of the water!

So, I'm curious to hear your aquarium advice :)
 
water bridge the 3 tens with pvc and some screen/sponge or some sort of prefilter strainer.
Then you can run sump on one end of the rack and return it on the other.
This will allow all 3 tanks to maintain the same parameters and increase volume for all three tanks..A large sump will aid in large water changes also...
Possibly just waterbridging behind each matten to next tank is good enough also..This way you only drill one tank.. Waterbridging is easy and effective..
I waterbridge all my sumps to make them larger..My 75 reef has a marineland model 2 sump with 2 @ 29 water bridged..My 180 has the model 4 with a 29 waterbridged to it.
Both run flawlessly now for years..
 
Huh. An interesting idea. I was pretty well set on the 10 gallons but had just about convinced myself that the 40 was the way to go. Now you're leaning me back the other direction :)
 
The only thing that might happen waterbridging if you have 'high' flow is the tanks will all have a different water level due to the pressure needed to pass to next tank.
For me when the main sump is a couple inches higher then the 29g I know the mechanical media[sponges] need to be cleaned.
With low flow and clean sponges you may be within 2 inches from tank one to the third tank.
IMO for quality sake you need to separate the best from b grade and possible culls.
 
If I go the 40 gallon route I was planning on throwing the culls into the community tank it'll be set up next to. I will probably do that anyway :)
 
You can have 200 or so shrimp easy in one 10 gallon easy. Can separate for breeding purpose. Keep water separate. If you have a disease breakout in one it's contained and not a total loss. If running a single 40 or the 10's with same water source you have to treat all tanks. Just putting that out there. Keeping same water parameters in three different tanks is really easy.
 
If I go the 40 gallon route I was planning on throwing the culls into the community tank it'll be set up next to. I will probably do that anyway :)
 
If you do separate tanks you could also go for different colors (yellows and blues for example) since the colors get muddled if they interbreed. Just a thought if the basic reds are that hard to get a hold of.
 
If you do separate tanks you could also go for different colors (yellows and blues for example) since the colors get muddled if they interbreed. Just a thought if the basic reds are that hard to get a hold of.



This is true too. I was also thinking that you could do a poret foam separator in a 40 gallon.
 
If you use poret I might cut it 1" lower then tank top to keep them from climbing out !
I have self cloning crays and nothing can touch the edge like air hose or they are out...
I run everything from their tank straight up over the center of tank so if they climb it they fall back in eventually..
Separating one tank with foam I would think they might be able to climb over and mix?
 
That's a good point too... I've never had my shrimp make a jailbreak, but they're in a Fluval Edge tank, maybe that's preventing them.
 
Been thinking some more, and went and actually measured all the stuff from my old tank. It has a 1" drain (behind a big full height overflow) and a 1/2" return line (though the loc line is 3/4"). Wondering if a drain line drilled into the side of a tank with a sponge covered intake would still be safe to use, or if it should be sized up a little more since it wouldn't have a full height overflow to work with. If I wanted the standard "6x the tank volume" turnover rate, even with the three 10's you're talking 200gph, but the numbers I've been finding for drain rates for 1" pipes range from "no problemo!" to "geeze, that's not much wiggle room."
 
Standard 1 inch PVC flow rate ;
PVC pipe flow rates
Twelve feet per second is an average fluid velocity for a Schedule 40 PVC pipe. At this velocity, the flow rate through a 1- inch PVC pipe is 16 gallons per minute. The flow rate increases by 20 GPM for every half-inch increase in pipe diameter.

On that note if the tanks are not waterbrigded then I would use a separate pump for each tank.Balancing something like that without a serious manifold will leave you with wet floors IMO.
If you waterbridge you need only 60GPH which a good 200-500 gallon pump should be able to be dialed in for...Remember you will loose return flow from 'head pressure ' and elbows..
Understanding and Calculating Head Pressure
 
Ok, sounds great :) I guess then you'd have to account for the sponge or whatever you've got covering the strainer... maybe I should go and dig out my old Fluid Dynamics textbook.
 
The sponge or pre filter will not slow flow until it gets clogged.Weekly cleaning works for most fish people so you should have no problem with shrimp.
For sumps the average 1" drain on a an overflow moves about 750GPH...
On my 75g my mag 9.5 is almost as much flow as it can handle.When my 120 was running with 2 overflows I had the jeboa 12,000 just one speed lower then full blast...[2 returns].
 
Started to go through all the stuff from the old tank. Looks like an "Amiracle" wet/dry filter of about 10 gallon volume, with a couple gallons of bioballs that I'm soaking in vinegar to get some of the calcification off of. A Danner Series 5 pump whose impeller is severely overgrown with more mineral buildup, but runs if you plug it in (also now soaking in vinegar). I pulled the bulkheads off the other tank (1" and 3/4" as previously mentioned), they seem to be in fine condition though I may get some new gaskets to be safe. Looked like I could use a small piece of acrylic to make the water level deeper in the bottom for some more dedicated biological media, so I grabbed a $3 piece of scrap plastic from the hardware store that's about perfect. The more I think about this the more I'd like to do a quasi-breeding tank, the 40 gallon setup is just such a nice size and it's gonna be in the dining room so that would look nicer...
 
PopTvWZ.jpg

Random fittings and stuff

ZWVNoAr.jpg

Washing sand

GSSNInf.jpg

The tank is currently holding water, which is good.
 
Some of these pictures are in other places too but I wanted to put them all in one place.

Drilled the holes:
IpY9ZRd.jpg


Painted the back, and bulkheads installed:
MjWuFM4.jpg


Drain and return fittings installed (debating if I'm going to paint the pvc or not):
lXXt9gf.jpg


So there you go. Progress, ever onward!
 
Looking good! I would paint the PVC black.
How porous is that foam? Any chance of clogging?
As a failsafe for the the drain, at first I was going to suggest drilling another hole and adding another bulkhead fitting (plus elbows and a Tee for the ribbed hose). However, you can add a T to the bulkhead fitting on the inside of the tank. One side of the Tee will handle the foam sleeve setup you have and for the other side, add another elbow with short standpipe to deal with any overflow. Probably overkill but something to keep in mind.
 
Back
Top Bottom