Those of you with dedicated fish rooms

ReefDave · 12-07-2005, 10:50 AM

Hey, this is for those of you with dedicated fish rooms...

I am planning on putting an 8' tank "in wall" behind a bar in my new basement. Since it will be behind the bar this will mean that the tank is goign to be up in the air quiet a bit higher than an average tank.

Some of the things I KNOW i will be doing in advance are...

Individual plumbing to the fish room, including one, maybe two floor drains.
A built up catwalk around the tank, in order to accomodate cleaning/reaching
Refugium, Quaranteen and eventual frag grow-out tanks will be on the opposite wall, counter top hieght for ease of use.
Water changes will use the two drum method, a drum with two pumps in it, one for circulation and one to pump fresh salt water into the sump, and a 2nd with an intake from the main tank (activated by a gate valve) and a 2nd valve to empty it directly into one of the two floor drains. This will allow for a very fast , dry water changes.
Lastly I will probably vent the fish room to both the living area (behind the bar) and to the outside, allowing me to keep the warm air in the winter months and duct it outside in summer.

Is there anything NOT listed here that you have done, or wish you had done, that you can't live without?

xtopher · 12-07-2005, 12:05 PM

that sounds really good.

can't wait to see it

MyReef · 12-07-2005, 12:15 PM

When you make your stand behind the wall....I like to give myself about a 6" lip on the stand all the way around the tank, so you can stand on it and work in the tank. I have done this on my last 2 in wall tanks and it helps tremendously....My latest stand is 40" off the ground, so I can use a step ladder to get up, then use the stand to walk around and do maintenance.

motorslave · 12-07-2005, 12:32 PM

i will be building a wet room soon and have found a controller that controlls ventillation fans. It has a control for both temp and humidity. You can set both at what you want, and at those preset levels the fan(s) will come on. Also for the water changes, check out my diagram in the "does this make sense"thread. It shows a water change tank that is a constant loop and simplifies the water change process. I would suggest going overboard on the electrical also. I will have dedicated circuits for lights, pumps, and misc. All of these circuits will come off of a sub-panel that will have a generator linked to it in case of power failure. HTH

Robert

motorslave · 12-07-2005, 12:33 PM

Oh yeah, I am also going to build the lights onto a rail system so I can slide them wasay from the tank for cleaning/access.

Robert

ReefDave · 12-07-2005, 01:14 PM

I was going to build a cat walk around the tank, but a 6-10" lip sounds like an even better plan......THe lights on a rails is also a must that I forgot to list. I was going to just use a pully system, but since its going to be elevated already I don't know if there will be as much clearance as I would like. So I'll probably go with the rail system also.

Someone else had can lighting above their rail lights..this allowed them to move the rail out of the way but thenturn on the can lighting and still be able to see what you are doing in the tank...I might do that.

motorslave · 12-07-2005, 01:16 PM

The can lights are a great idea. I think Ill do the same! Thats a great thing!

Robert

ReefDave · 12-07-2005, 01:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by motorslave

i will be building a wet room soon and have found a controller that controlls ventillation fans. It has a control for both temp and humidity. You can set both at what you want, and at those preset levels the fan(s) will come on. Also for the water changes, check out my diagram in the "does this make sense"thread. It shows a water change tank that is a constant loop and simplifies the water change process. I would suggest going overboard on the electrical also. I will have dedicated circuits for lights, pumps, and misc. All of these circuits will come off of a sub-panel that will have a generator linked to it in case of power failure. HTH

Robert

Wow, I had thought about the a couple dedicated circuits, but hadn't even thought of the generator or having its own sub-panel....good to think about, especialy when the house is being built. Right now I live in town, if I lose power I usualy have it back in 15-30 minutes. But once we move out to the country A power outage could last hours...

motorslave · 12-07-2005, 01:17 PM

You just need enough juice from the generator to run the essencials, pumps skimmer etc... The lights dont need to be on it.

Robert