Back in July of 2013, I posted on this site to get some advice on a large fish tank that I wanted to put into our new upcoming home. I want to thank many of you that chimed in with great advice. Its taken a bit longer than I expected but we are well under way and I wanted to finally post progress pictures of our new home that will contain a roughly 1000 gallon salt water tank system. The original thread can be referenced here:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2313593
I wanted to start this thread new with pictures that I have managed to take so far and continue to update this thread as work progresses.
I used to keep salt water tanks back in the college days and really enjoyed the hobby. Time, constant moving from apartment to apartment and obviously budget really limited what I was able to do.
Now that Im a bit older, a bit wiser and have a few more dollars in the pocket this is going to be an all out build. The budget was supposed to be reasonable but I will tell you that the budget has completely been blown between the planning, plumping equipment, and all the other ancillary costs associated with building a large tank. Im fortunate in that my wife has put no restrictions on me for this build. We are going to try to do it right and not cut corners anywhere.
In the house we have a Great Room concept where the kitchen, family room and the bar area are all one long room. The large space (about 60 feet long by 25 feet wide) is separated by changes in ceiling height between the family room and kitchen.
A large two way fireplace was supposed to separate the family room and the bar. Well, as I was reviewing the construction plans I realized that instead of a fireplace separating the family room and bar, what a great location for a large fish tank. So after consulting with the architect and builder, this is exactly what we did.
Originally I was going to run the fish room where all the filtration was going to go in a extra auxiliary room in my office. But after planning and consulting, we realized that the room was just going to be too small so we decided to move the fish room into the garage by building a 3x20 foot room at the back of the garage. My garage is almost 30 feet in length so plenty of room to take a few feet in the back for all the equipment. This fish room is depressed by 3 inches so in case of any disasters or floods, the water will not flood the house. We also have a 10 inch drain in the fish room to take away any leaking water.
The fish room will have its own climate control- aka AC unit that is dedicated just to this room to keep the water temperature constant. All the filtration and supplies will go into this room. We will also paint the walls with a marine grade varnish that is water proof and will allow me to take a hose and hose the debris off.
We will have a built in water supply and sink to do any cleaning. The room is not deep so there will be 3 sets of doors for access to the room so that myself or any service individuals can have plenty of access to the room.
Attached is the original plan where we were going to run the equipment in the office. The second image is the schematic of where the fish room will be in relation to the garage. The distance is about 75 feet so we have some big pumps that will be pumping water back and forth.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2313593
I wanted to start this thread new with pictures that I have managed to take so far and continue to update this thread as work progresses.
I used to keep salt water tanks back in the college days and really enjoyed the hobby. Time, constant moving from apartment to apartment and obviously budget really limited what I was able to do.
Now that Im a bit older, a bit wiser and have a few more dollars in the pocket this is going to be an all out build. The budget was supposed to be reasonable but I will tell you that the budget has completely been blown between the planning, plumping equipment, and all the other ancillary costs associated with building a large tank. Im fortunate in that my wife has put no restrictions on me for this build. We are going to try to do it right and not cut corners anywhere.
In the house we have a Great Room concept where the kitchen, family room and the bar area are all one long room. The large space (about 60 feet long by 25 feet wide) is separated by changes in ceiling height between the family room and kitchen.
A large two way fireplace was supposed to separate the family room and the bar. Well, as I was reviewing the construction plans I realized that instead of a fireplace separating the family room and bar, what a great location for a large fish tank. So after consulting with the architect and builder, this is exactly what we did.
Originally I was going to run the fish room where all the filtration was going to go in a extra auxiliary room in my office. But after planning and consulting, we realized that the room was just going to be too small so we decided to move the fish room into the garage by building a 3x20 foot room at the back of the garage. My garage is almost 30 feet in length so plenty of room to take a few feet in the back for all the equipment. This fish room is depressed by 3 inches so in case of any disasters or floods, the water will not flood the house. We also have a 10 inch drain in the fish room to take away any leaking water.
The fish room will have its own climate control- aka AC unit that is dedicated just to this room to keep the water temperature constant. All the filtration and supplies will go into this room. We will also paint the walls with a marine grade varnish that is water proof and will allow me to take a hose and hose the debris off.
We will have a built in water supply and sink to do any cleaning. The room is not deep so there will be 3 sets of doors for access to the room so that myself or any service individuals can have plenty of access to the room.
Attached is the original plan where we were going to run the equipment in the office. The second image is the schematic of where the fish room will be in relation to the garage. The distance is about 75 feet so we have some big pumps that will be pumping water back and forth.
