Camron's 220 Gallon Build

Arc Drafter

New member
Hi everyone, I wanted to start this build thread to document and share my basement transformation.

A little about me. I am a GIS consultant in Kansas City MO. I just bought my first house and my realtor came across 2 large fish tanks. He gave me the 180. It is a standard dimension 6'x2'x2'.

I am currently in the process of redoing the floors and walls in the basement. I'll post pictures in a day or so. I am hoping to have the tank on the stand in position next week.

My current system is a 60g sps dominate with a 20g sump/fuge.
Hope some of you follow along and give me some advice along the way.
 
Thanks David and Mike. I tried to put pictures up earlier but they didn't go for reason. I'll give it another shot in an hour or so.
 
I moved to the greater Kansas City area about 4 years ago. My tanks are in our finished basement, really helps with temperature control. Good luck with your build
 
I moved to the greater Kansas City area about 4 years ago. My tanks are in our finished basement, really helps with temperature control. Good luck with your build

I would like to see your tanks some time. Maybe steal a few ideas from you ;).

Tank spot
http://s821.photobucket.com/user/CamNHull/media/001_zps19eafa8a.jpg.html?sort=3&o=4

Current 60g
http://s821.photobucket.com/user/CamNHull/media/005_zps3fa47cd0.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0

The new 180 w/ the Corallife mh t5 combo
http://s821.photobucket.com/user/CamNHull/media/004_zps353aba9d.jpg.html?sort=3&o=1
 
Camron - Good looking basic basement layout. Assuming it is to scale, it appears to give you plenty of room to access three sides of the tank, as well as allow room for expansion with the addition of other tanks or a refugium. Nice planning to have the tank sit on the tile. Makes accidental spills easier to clean/dry up, and also makes the spouse happy. When we finished my basement, we went for the stained concrete look on the floor knowing that the tanks would be down there and carpet was out of the question.



If it is not too late, I would make sure I ran at least two, maybe three, dedicated electrical lines protected by GFCI's. For my tanks, I ran three seperate lines; two (2) for the MH lights and one for the pumps. Since I switched over to LED's, I now have all the LED's plugged into one circuit, and the pumps & skimmer for each tank on their own seperate circuits. I had plenty of open spaces in my electrical box, and having dedicated circuits reduces the likelihood someone will plug a vacuum cleaner into the electrical line that supports your tank and overload a circuit or trip a breaker. Assuming your home is relatively new, adding additional circuits is relatively easy.

I would have also ran a product output water line from my RO unit to both of my auto top-off reservoirs. My ATO reservoirs are 25 gallons each, since each of my 250's lose about 2-3 gallons per day due to evaporation, I'm filling the reservoirs up about every week and a half. Now I have to string a length of hose along the floor to fill up the ATO reservoirs, and every so often one of my dogs manages to get tangled up in it. My ATO is pretty simple, and relies on me manually filling the reservoir, so the danger it runs amok and floods more than 25 gallons of fresh water into my tanks or on the floor is minimized.

If you ever think you will use a controller, you may want to run some CAT-5 cable into an outlet behind your tank. I haven't seen a truely wireless one (yet) that I like or want to afford, so this suggestion may not be helpful as the technology evolves.

Lastly, I'd buy a water alarm and a power outage alarm. The water alarm will alert you to floods as they happen (mine seem to have always occurred in the middle of the night). First Alert sells a 3 pack for $32.00. I also run a power outage alarm on my pump circuit - it's called a Failed Circuit Alarm and it's made by CSH Inc for $27.50. The Failed Circuit Alarm goes off if the power is cut (like when your GFCI is tripped). Both products are helpful for alerting you to failures as they happen - but are not so good if the failure happens while you're away from home.

These are just my suggestions, take them for what they're worth. Good luck. If you want more planning suggestion, please show where your utility room is on the plans. I ended up installing a slop sink in my basement utility room for the RO unit and to keep regular aquarium cleaning and maintenance out of the sink in my wetbar or the bathroom.
 
You bring up really good points. I'm still working out the details ultimately I need a smooth system for water changes trying to figure that one right now thinking of Building a wall of the back left corner of the tank to the bathroom to store mixing barrels so I can just valve on and valve off
 
Hi everyone, I wanted to start this build thread to document and share my basement transformation.

A little about me. I am a GIS consultant in Kansas City MO. I just bought my first house and my realtor came across 2 large fish tanks. He gave me the 180. It is a standard dimension 6'x2'x2'.

I am currently in the process of redoing the floors and walls in the basement. I'll post pictures in a day or so. I am hoping to have the tank on the stand in position next week.

My current system is a 60g sps dominate with a 20g sump/fuge.
Hope some of you follow along and give me some advice along the way.

Consider yourself lucky, i've been in this hobby for over 20 years and no one has even given me a 10gal tank.:hammer:
 
You bring up really good points. I'm still working out the details ultimately I need a smooth system for water changes trying to figure that one right now thinking of Building a wall of the back left corner of the tank to the bathroom to store mixing barrels so I can just valve on and valve off

That's what I was thinking. You could build a "closet" that abuts the back of your powder room to store your mixing barrels. Plumbing a RO into existing waste and supply lines would be easy, since they're in close proximity.

If you go to plastic-mart dot com and consider the stackable storage tanks, I am sure you can get some great ideas for RO storage tanks and saltwater mixing tanks that could be stacked and would have a small footprint. There are be other tank suppliers out there, I bought my tanks from plastic-mart and was pleased with the price, selection and customer service.

Planning tank setup is fun, I did a lot of things right for my set-up, yet i still identified some things I would change or do differently. Hope this helps
 

001_zps19eafa8a.jpg


005_zps3fa47cd0.jpg


004_zps353aba9d.jpg
 
You bring up really good points. I'm still working out the details ultimately I need a smooth system for water changes trying to figure that one right now thinking of Building a wall of the back left corner of the tank to the bathroom to store mixing barrels so I can just valve on and valve off
you have a blank slate here. could you consider giving yourself some room behind the tank for a "fish room" and doing an in wall build?

and david's suggestions are good ones

i will be watching this thread. good luck
 
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