newellcr Posted March 29, 2016 Report Share Posted March 29, 2016 Seaj, I have seen the racks in home depot but don't really know about them. My oldest chrome aquarium rack has been up nearly 10 years. I used these racks for normal garage storage going back about 15 years and have only ever gotten them at Costco. Costco gets them from Seville Classics, but not all shelves from this company are the same. https://www.sevilleclassics.com/ My chrome racks do bow under the weight. I haven't noticed any instability. The foam is 1/2". The most recent piece that I bought had tongue and grove around the edges. The lighting is DIY with 5050 cool and warm white strips. It is mounted in galvanized channel used for metal wall stud framing. It has an industrial look and is very functional and cheap. Pokeshrimp 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newellcr Posted March 29, 2016 Report Share Posted March 29, 2016 Poke, Thanks. I keep 8-10 shrimp in the 2.5's at most. When they reproduce, I try to get them into larger tanks. I use the 2.5's for female livebearers as well. After she drops the fry, I dip her out and back into the colony. I am still learning how to use the 2.5's effectively. I haven't been doing shrimp crosses yet, but rather isolating my 'best' pair or trio, to strengthen what I am currently working with. The 2.5's have taught me a couple of things as I mentioned in other posts. I have been enjoying the successes and learning from the mistakes, so I am pretty happy with them so far. Pokeshrimp 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newellcr Posted March 29, 2016 Report Share Posted March 29, 2016 Here are some pictures I posted in a thread last fall. One rack grew into two and I reshuffled some 10's off another rack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newellcr Posted March 29, 2016 Report Share Posted March 29, 2016 Here is a picture of a small light that is the same type of construction for the 4 footers over each shelf. If you guys want to see anything else, let me know. Regards, Chris 35ppt and waterbear 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
35ppt Posted March 29, 2016 Report Share Posted March 29, 2016 I thought you needed a heat sink? Really enjoying learning from all your tips. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newellcr Posted March 29, 2016 Report Share Posted March 29, 2016 35ppt, the whole strip does act like a heat sink. It really doesn't get hot. I have a laser/infrared thermometer 'gun'. Most of my dedicated space is right around 73 degrees and the light fixture metal comes up in the 75 degree range. Some people use these same strips inside pieces of plastic gutter. I've heard a couple of stories about strips burning out. Luckily, I haven't seen that yet. Most of the lights have been up and working for a year. My biggest problem with these strips is that the push in clips corrode and you need to keep jiggling them to get them to work. I solved this by soldering every connection/clip. Thanks for the kind words. I've had a lot of nice people help me over the years and I still learn a lot from others. I like to participate when I can. Regards, Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crackhead Johny Posted April 1, 2016 Report Share Posted April 1, 2016 On 3/27/2016 at 3:11 PM, newellcr said: Thanks Dazalea. ShrimpP, these are the Costco racks and are rated at 800 lbs per shelf. There is a label on each shelf. I have seen some other racks that look like this but they don't have the center reinforcing bar. 1 55gal per shelf... and there is a 1$/gal sale going right now. or 40 gal breeders.. You Sir, are an enabler! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newellcr Posted April 1, 2016 Report Share Posted April 1, 2016 Johny, you have my attention with those big tanks on metal. I've never tried anything heavier than 10g tanks on these racks. 4x10g or 1x40g is still 40 gallons for 320 pounds plus glass. A 55 adds another 120 pounds. Theoretically, it should work. I measured the rack. There is 15.5 inches between the poles front to back and the shelf outside to outside is 48 inches so the 55 should fit if I recall the front to back dimensions correctly. My concern is the point loading where the 55 would be on the side-to-side edges of the shelf. The 36 incher might get a lot of stress on the side-to-side plastic trim edges also. You might want to look at putting some wood along the edge in addition to foam for those big tanks. The 800 pound rating is based on a distributed load. Personally, everything that I have that are bigger than 10g's are on 2x4 construction, but I do know that folks use the metal racks for a lot of sizes of tanks. The only other things I can think of to say is to throw away the wheels no matter what kind of tanks you have and know your flooring or put it on concrete. "Enabler", I'm going to share that one with my wife. She'll probably just call me guilty as charged, but I'm no more responsible than the stores with the cheap tanks... Regards, Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crackhead Johny Posted April 5, 2016 Report Share Posted April 5, 2016 So not 48+ inches wide. That is for the best as I accidentally bought 2 60 gals this week while trying to buy a stand for a new 55... Still need a stand for the 55 I was just suggesting to my wife that Nexel racks would support tanks really nice (except for cost...). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ianhamm Posted July 16, 2016 Report Share Posted July 16, 2016 On 3/27/2016 at 10:59 AM, newellcr said: I wasn't trying to keep the rack efficient wrt the 2.5s. I added this chrome rack late last fall. With the duct work in the way, I simply set the rack up to handle 10g tanks and put in 2.5's instead. The thought was that I may not like the 2.5's and want to replace them with 10g's. There really wasn't space for a 3rd tier of 2.5's so this worked out well. A lot of fish keepers don't like using 2.5's mostly because of the whole 'they go badly quickly' thing and setting the rack up for 10g's just made sense. My racks are all set up with water, overflow, central air, and DIY LED lighting. The 2.5's get the same percentage and timing of water changes so I have yet to really encounter the overloading of biomass problem. I can see how it would be easy to procrastinate doing hand maintenance on these smaller tanks. Regards, Chris WOw, is there anyway you can talk about your setup? Its amazing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newellcr Posted July 18, 2016 Report Share Posted July 18, 2016 Thanks, Ian, The top picture is my version of a gardener's potting cart. The base is the same chrome shelving. The top is a vanity countertop with no sink. There is a 'concrete' mixing bin under the opening to catch debris. I use this to pot/unpot aquarium plants with top soil and gravel. The mess drops thru the shelving rack into the bin. It makes cleanup easy. The other shelves house live food cultures, bagging supplies, and whatnot. It makes a good workspace for so many aquatic tasks. The racks are plumbed with water, air from a central air pump, LED 12v power supplies, and each tank is drilled to make water changes easy by overflowing the waste down the drain. The room gets heat/cooling from the home central system and the room has a dedicated natural gas ventless heater. I don't shut off the cooling entirely even though it fights the ventless heater. This helps me control the humidity during the warmer months. Each rack is set up that way including the 'potting' cart. My water changes take about 90 minutes and I can do other tasks while the water overflows. My goal was to automate a lot of what I didn't like doing so I could spend more time feeding, watching, and tending the fish and shrimp. In the warmer months, the 100+ tanks take about an hour a day of care and in the colder months, it's easy to fill 2 hours/day. Sometimes I do spend less time than this in there, but to get the fishroom really rocking the hour a day needs to happen. Let me know if you have any specific topic. I will be happy to take pictures or chat. Regards, Chris Ianhamm 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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