Designing a Tank Room

[Jive Turkey]

In the new place, I have the option of setting up a small room behind a new 120g reef. The room is a 20 sq. ft. sloped-ceiling storage area under the stairs in the basement, and I was looking to cut a 3 x 4" hole so I can have 2 1.5" PVC pipes and a few cords go through it.
The problem is, there are no lights, ducts, or plug-ins inside. There is a 2 socket plug-in behind the tank, and another on the outer wall of the opposite side of the staircase in another room that is on another circuit. I was thinking it could be accessed thru the wall inside the tank room somehow, but I am no electrician. How does this sound?

Another thing, how will the lack of ducts affect humidity, and how can I treat the walls to prevent damage?

Has anybody used agriculture tubs as sump/refugiums? I was think along the lines of 150g sump and a 30 or 45g refugium under the tank where there is air circulation.

Any tips or stories of past follies would be greatly appreciated.



Joe

[Graham]

You saw my setup, Joe. Run some power...it's easy.
Install a couple dedicated GFIs underneath the stairs.
Humidity will depend on total gallons - I don't think you'd have any significant problems. A decent dehumidifier will alleviate anything a 120 can produce.

You saw the open 40 gallon tub I used for a sump. I now use a 40L tank as a sump, but humidity was never an issue anyway. Blow a fan into the space under the stairs - just as much air exchange as in the stand...probably more.

[David Grigor]

Joe, Are you renting or own ? Meaning can you make modifications to the house ?

[aka_bigred]

If you are worried that there's no ventilation, you could put a false duct through the wall into your equip room. Just get two heating vent faceplates and a couple inches of duct and make a duct that only goes through the width of the wall itself. Basically it'd be a hole in the wall for ventilation that you cover with the face plates. You could rig up an exhaust fan if you really had troubles. I'd think between a false duct and a dehumidifier, you should be fine on humidity.

Only downfall I'd think of is you don't have a floor drain in there. I've seen some houses that have the sump pump under the stairs. If you could get any sort of drain access, that'd make things easier for water changes, etc so you didn't have to lug out buckets of water. The dehumidifier will collect water constantly, so it might be nice to use a drain line on it instead of having to empty the bucket every day. I'm setting mine up in my basement, and I've just run hose over to my floor drain.

Tapping into the electrical should be easy, just put a box on the other side of the wall near either of the existing outlets. Would require some minor work, but nothing to crazy. Defitely put a GFI outlet on it, and put in at least a 4 outlet box if possible. With mine I also wired in a master switch to kill power to the entire line too. Not required, but I thought it might be nice to have a quick kill switch if needed.

HTH!

[Jive Turkey]

Thx guys. Good ideas. I was thinking of taking the door off and setting up some hippie beads in it's place to help with humidity and air circulation, but the false duct would be better I'd bet. What I really want to do is setup a 65g zoa/SPS prop tank in there with DE halides.

David, moving back with parents so I don't have to take out financial aid at SCSU. No debts yet after 3 semesters, and I want to keep it that way. They own and I can tear it up, within reason.

[Soltaker]

You might want to spend a few bucks and repaint the whole closet with an epoxy-based paint. It will help keep the humidity from causing any harm to the underside of the stairs. That in addition to to a vent and a dehumidifier should ensure you have no problems.

As for the wiring...I suck at teh electrical. But what we did at my old place was run in a new line from the box to the fish room. On that circuit, we only put the lights and main pump onto it. Everything else (heaters, PH's, smaller pump) was plugged into a few existing outlets. I could have added another line and more outlets, but it was mostly just a temp. set-up. When I start my new fish room next month, I will have at minimum 2 new circuits going into the fish room.