Its been ages since I've had a chance to set some tanks up for breeding projects, but finaly I've the time and space to set up a few again and have a go at breeding some of the fish I'm keeping in my main tank.

The first place is an alcove just under 6' in a quiet room (hard to find in a not huge house with 2 toddlers and a baby on the way in a couple of months ) which I'm planning to build a rack for 6 30x15x12 tanks, some of them are going to be divided into 2 for spawning the angels in, the rest will probably be for growing out the angel babies in since I don't really have room for any bigger tanks just yet. I'm also thinking of putting the pandas in one of the growout tanks to see how they do on the higher food load and frequent waterchanges that grow out tanks always get. If it works well I'm tempted to add some shoals of corys to the other grow out tanks but haven't decided on which types just yet. The other space I have is another small alcove in a side room which I'm going to put a pair of 30" tanks in with the bristlenoses being left on their own to see how they do.

If I get chance and people are interested I can post more info and pictures as I set this up.

Yes, by all means. Perhaps a progression of your Tank Racks?

I'm interested! and I like pics

I've almost finished decorating the room and got the wood for the racks on Friday, so I should be able to get on building them later this week after a few days to recover . Meanwhile I'll do some plans and stuff to upload to see what I'm making and take piccies as they get put together etc.

sounds interesting and makes me a tad jealous

pics of the build and final setup would be great to see.

Sorry for the lack of updates, I haven't forgot about this thread or decided against getting this project off the ground, but I did have a small rethink on the idea and well you as you know playing with timber and stuff on paper is a hell of a lot easier and cheaper than for real.

Instead of going for a conventional breeding setup with a large air blower and sponge filters in each tank I'm opting to run a centralised system. The main reasons are pretty simple, as seperate tanks they don't hold much water (~18g each) but combined they become a much more stable 108g plus the water in sumps and pipe work which should bring the whole rack closer to 140g. I've had problems before where the air powered sponge filters haven't adapted to the quick rise in waste from feeding new spawns, and with a new baby due early in May I'm not going to have as much time to do massive water changes several times a day. With a central system I can fit sand fluid filters in the sump which react very quickly to changes in stocking levels and a trickle tower can be added to keep oxgen levels up if the fluid filters start stripping it from the water. I can also do large water changes quite quickly on all the tanks at the same time. Mess and waste in the tanks themselves can be quickly removed with a turkey baster or air powered vacuum and I'm also looking into plumbing the system to make waterchanges as easy as turning 2 taps but this might be have to be a future project.

The disadvantages I can see would only come if I do something really stupid like put new unquarantined stock in the system, but I have tanks available to do that seperately so it shouldn't be a problem. I might also run into problems if I was trying to breed incompatable species, but since I'm planning on breeding and raising Angelfish and Panda corys in it, which have already bred together in my current main tank so I'm not expecting many problems here either.

Heres a rough up of the rack in 3d:
<img src="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/m_sykes/rack_profile.JPG" width="800">

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[img]http://homepage.ntlworld.com/m_sykes/rack_profile.JPG[/img]

Bays 1 and 2 are going to have the 2 30x15x12 divided tanks on for breeding pairs of Angels. I have 2 confirmed pairs right now, but there are others in the main tank that are showing signs of pairing which I'd like to try with.

Bays 3 to 6 are going to be growing out tanks of 30x15x12, but I'm planning to introduce a group of corys into each of them as cleaning crew starting with the pandas, and with some cover and plants hope they will also start spawning in the future.

Bays 7 and 8 are for the sumps. The system will drain into the sump in bay 7 where the water will flow through sponges and floss to clean it up before moving into bay 8 where this sump will be like a refugium. The first area will be planted with some fast growing plants (probably E. densa) and lighted 24/7 with the excess growth thrown away. The final chamber will have the electrical equipment including sand fluid filter, heaters and sump pump to return the water back to the tanks above it. This is the basic plan for now though theres still some design work to sort out and test including the overflows for the tanks to drain into. The sumps atm are probably going to be domestic cold water systerns because they're cheap and can be modified to accept pvc piping easily. Anyways I'll add more about this as I work it out or finish the designs and build it.

So this is the point I'm at for now. I have the space to build the rack and the timber so it will be built at some point this week. The tanks are avaible and I have enough surplus kit to set some up normally for now so will be using them to take the strain off my slightly overcrowed main tank while this system gets finished. More updates and pictures will follow as it happens .

I guess you're positioning all this above a floor drain?

If you had a sort of 'Drip Irrigation' setup, coupled with overflow outlets, you wouldn't need to worry about water changes at all!

I know bugger all about 'Sumps'. It'd be interesting to hear more detail on them, at your leisure.

Actually it isn't, its in an upstairs bedroom - I've had the floor checked tho and should be ok (reinforced joists on a structural wall, its good for over 2.5ton). But you have given me an idea of laying a drain for it to the bathroom, which would work. Thanks for that .

The house is quiet, all the kids and the missus have gone out for the day. Rack building time .

A real step by step !

Swigs Coffee, scratches Bum... Glances casually toward pile of timber leaning against corner of room.

First big part almost finished which is the rack itself. Sorry couldn't take WIP piccies since our lass took the digicam with her yesterday but heres a pic of it so far:



The basic frame is in place and almost complete, just need to put the final cross supports in for the top level, seal it then I can start wiring up ready to take the tanks.

Looks very good so far

very nice so far. a nice bit of construction. by the looks of it u r using nuts n bolts to hold it together? if so, good idea, as it means u can deconstruct it whenever necessary.

i look forward to seeing pics of it when it's finished with tanks installed.

Exactly what I was thinking fishypaw, this is a dry run for setting up a fish house in the garden next year and so it needed to be moveable and I don't want to have to buy twice if I can get away with it .

Hoping to get some more time to work on it tommorow and get the first tanks onto it by the weekend at the latest.