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214 Posts
I have had this 10 gallon tank for some time now and knew I was saving it to make a Shrimp tank. The issues I faced over the time I had this was the financial aspect of collecting all the materials I needed to make it the way I envisioned years ago. Needless to say it has taken some time to collect all the materials I needed to get the process started.
May as well make this a photo diary of the progression of start to finish.
I started out with a tank I collected last year as a donation with some fish from a nice lady on Vancouver Freecycle who was looking to find a home for her fish and was willing to donate the tank and supplies as well so I inherited this tank. Needless to say it needed some serious help if it was going to display anything in my home.
I kept this tank empty but cycling for many months with lofty plans to create a Sulawesi shrimp tank with it. I knew I wanted lots of filtration so 2 HOB filters were implemented. One to run an undergravel filter and another to filter the water column.
The day I decided to go shopping for supplies I bounced some ideas off of fellow forum member Ray Wong. I decided upon Dragon Stone which I found at a local fish shop on Kingsway in Vancouver. I selected to very nice pieces and I had lofty ideas what to do with them.
Knowing I wanted to have Sulawesi shrimp I asked Ray, buffering or non reactive stratum? and what is best for the colours of the shrimp. Ray assured me non-reactive black gravel would work well. While I was at Ray's place I was able to pick up a glass lid for the tank to help with evaporation. I picked up the undergravel filter at the same LFS that I found the Dragon Stone. I had hoped once assembled it would fit better but it will work fine since the gravel will still need semi annual vacuuming and the UGF is in place to keep water parameters more stable.
I lined the UGF with pollysheet to keep finer particulates from collecting under the UGF in the future but still allow it to be vacuumed.
I layed down a nice bed of non reactive black gravel and since I knew I wanted to keep the background black as well I made the riser tubes for the UGF black as well. This will help hide all the mechanical equipment.
To be continued...
Cheers,
Sean
May as well make this a photo diary of the progression of start to finish.
I started out with a tank I collected last year as a donation with some fish from a nice lady on Vancouver Freecycle who was looking to find a home for her fish and was willing to donate the tank and supplies as well so I inherited this tank. Needless to say it needed some serious help if it was going to display anything in my home.

I kept this tank empty but cycling for many months with lofty plans to create a Sulawesi shrimp tank with it. I knew I wanted lots of filtration so 2 HOB filters were implemented. One to run an undergravel filter and another to filter the water column.
The day I decided to go shopping for supplies I bounced some ideas off of fellow forum member Ray Wong. I decided upon Dragon Stone which I found at a local fish shop on Kingsway in Vancouver. I selected to very nice pieces and I had lofty ideas what to do with them.

Knowing I wanted to have Sulawesi shrimp I asked Ray, buffering or non reactive stratum? and what is best for the colours of the shrimp. Ray assured me non-reactive black gravel would work well. While I was at Ray's place I was able to pick up a glass lid for the tank to help with evaporation. I picked up the undergravel filter at the same LFS that I found the Dragon Stone. I had hoped once assembled it would fit better but it will work fine since the gravel will still need semi annual vacuuming and the UGF is in place to keep water parameters more stable.

I lined the UGF with pollysheet to keep finer particulates from collecting under the UGF in the future but still allow it to be vacuumed.

I layed down a nice bed of non reactive black gravel and since I knew I wanted to keep the background black as well I made the riser tubes for the UGF black as well. This will help hide all the mechanical equipment.

To be continued...
Cheers,
Sean