sfsuphysics
Active member
Hi I thought I'd ask the advice of some who have had experience with room divider tanks. I want to move the tank into another room (right now its in my living room, and feels out of place because of limited wall room due to couch, big screen tv, multiple entry ways, a fireplace & huge window that stretches nearly the entire width of the room, even though the room is about 20' x 10'). Now I cleaned out a spare room JUST for my tank (and possibly throw my computer in there too 
), and for a room divider I need to build a new stand for the tank because I'd need both sides to be finished, where as my current stand only has the front and two small sides 'finished'.
Today I built the base for the tank stand (72.5" x 18.5", 135g tank) just so I can have some visual feel of how much the room will be chopped up into. The problem is the room itself is small only 12' x 10' although the windows and doors are placed good areas so they don't add many restrictions. Unfortunately when I put down the base I noticed that it REALLY chopped the room up, because I had to leave a little extra space between the wall and tank for plumbing & electrical as I'll only have about 18" to play with for putting all the stuff in. Now there is still an old sewing desk (was my grandmothers) and a few bookshelves /cabinets in the room so the room looks much smaller than it is, but unless I put towards the 12 foot length, it'll really chop up the room into nothingness. Then out of curiosity I laid it in the corner so it comes out at a 45(ish) at first I dismissed the idea because I figured the far end of the tank would widdle down to a point where I couldn't get behind and work, but by keeping it a few inches from the wall this isn't as much of an issue as I thought.
Now I wanted to just get some feedback from those who have done this and maybe could pass some of your wisdom on to me like if its very useful to do any one of these methods? Or if there is some little bit I'm overlooking that will be much more stress free if I find out about it now instead of later when there's almost a ton of fish tank and water in the space (ie unmovable).
Btw the reasoning for this incase some of you are thinking "why not place this against the wall flat" is that its a 6 foot tank, and if I place it against a wall (which still is an option btw) I'd have to leave atleast 8"+ (maybe as much as a foot) between the tank and the wall to physically get behind to work on stuff (or build some sort of ladder to go up and over), which might not look very good in the room. Also I thought of the room divider look not so much to divide the room up but so I can have 2 large faces to view through, now I realize with an 18" wide tank this does have some challenges since there's not as much room to make rockwork look as nice, but thats probably a challenge i can overcome.
Btw here are some pictures of the tank dimensions (how I want it for the roomdivider) and the room dimensions (not drawn to scale but measured correctly.)
btw, the corner plan I had was the corner with the 74" & 86" wall, to both stay away from the window, and allow it to be visible by those casually walking by the doorway.
), and for a room divider I need to build a new stand for the tank because I'd need both sides to be finished, where as my current stand only has the front and two small sides 'finished'. Today I built the base for the tank stand (72.5" x 18.5", 135g tank) just so I can have some visual feel of how much the room will be chopped up into. The problem is the room itself is small only 12' x 10' although the windows and doors are placed good areas so they don't add many restrictions. Unfortunately when I put down the base I noticed that it REALLY chopped the room up, because I had to leave a little extra space between the wall and tank for plumbing & electrical as I'll only have about 18" to play with for putting all the stuff in. Now there is still an old sewing desk (was my grandmothers) and a few bookshelves /cabinets in the room so the room looks much smaller than it is, but unless I put towards the 12 foot length, it'll really chop up the room into nothingness. Then out of curiosity I laid it in the corner so it comes out at a 45(ish) at first I dismissed the idea because I figured the far end of the tank would widdle down to a point where I couldn't get behind and work, but by keeping it a few inches from the wall this isn't as much of an issue as I thought.
Now I wanted to just get some feedback from those who have done this and maybe could pass some of your wisdom on to me like if its very useful to do any one of these methods? Or if there is some little bit I'm overlooking that will be much more stress free if I find out about it now instead of later when there's almost a ton of fish tank and water in the space (ie unmovable).
Btw the reasoning for this incase some of you are thinking "why not place this against the wall flat" is that its a 6 foot tank, and if I place it against a wall (which still is an option btw) I'd have to leave atleast 8"+ (maybe as much as a foot) between the tank and the wall to physically get behind to work on stuff (or build some sort of ladder to go up and over), which might not look very good in the room. Also I thought of the room divider look not so much to divide the room up but so I can have 2 large faces to view through, now I realize with an 18" wide tank this does have some challenges since there's not as much room to make rockwork look as nice, but thats probably a challenge i can overcome.
Btw here are some pictures of the tank dimensions (how I want it for the roomdivider) and the room dimensions (not drawn to scale but measured correctly.)
btw, the corner plan I had was the corner with the 74" & 86" wall, to both stay away from the window, and allow it to be visible by those casually walking by the doorway.
