Help me design my fish room

[Bucket Boy]

OK -- So I am going to build a new house next year and have permission to design an in-wall tank. Conceptually I'm thinking 225 ish with dimensions of 72 x 30 x 24. Lighting is still undetermined "“ MH, T-5 or LED are all on the table. I want to design a very efficient, user friendly fish room and would like input from those who have traveled this path before me. I would like to minimize the hassle of water changes and am considering a drain in the floor. What's the minimum width the room should be in order to be able to move around? What features are "œmust have's", what features are "nice to have if you can afford it". What are the lessons learned, what would you do differently if you could do it over. Thanks in advance for all your input.

 

[Untamed12]

You are very wise to be thinking about that aspect. It is much more important than anything else to long term keeping of a big tank.

Some sort of drain is essential. I'm managing to live without a floor drain, but I had to raise my sumps in order to connect to a wall drain. It is all about height.

Sink with hot/cold water and drain. Essential.

Storage tank for purified water. Mixing tank. Need to valve from the storage tank to the mixing tank to make up new SW.

Think about how much water you want to change out to do a water change. That means capturing some measurable amount, dumping that directly to a drain, refilling that measured amount directly from your mixer using a pump.

Don't cram your sumps underneat the tank if you can help it. Very useful to be able to keep the sump(s) clean and access is everything.

My fish room is only about 8' x 4' and sits directly behind my 6 foot tank.

Here's what my fish room looks like.

RO/DI feeds the 100gallon storage tank on the upper right. It is elevated to gravity feed the evaporative replacement water, as well as gravity feed water into the mixer (below it). Municipal water pressure and gravity are still free...use them to deliver water to different places.

You can see the sink. There is actually a 50 gallon sump immediately to the left of the sink that functions as a water change sump. I catch 50 gallons, dump 50 gallons, replace it with 50 gallons of new SW, then return this sump to active flow in the system.

The main sump is in the lower left of the photo. It protrudes out from under the display and allows me to put a very tall skimmer in the sump.. (I've since installed a larger skimmer than the one shown in this photo)

Finally, I left the back of the tank clear so that I could see into the tank when I'm back there. I would REALLY recommend this since I spend so much time back there it is nice to see into the tank while I'm there.

Good luck. Hope this helps get you thinking.

 

[porthios]

untamed has it right as usual. especially his thoughts on gravity. use gravity for everything you can.

other than that, seal the fishroom floor if you can to contain spills from running to other rooms and make sure you have easy access to electrical outlets, controllers, valves, etc.. having to lean on a big sump full of water in order to unplug a pump from an outlet is NOT a good idea.

 

[Bucket Boy]

Excellent input. Thank you. Untamed -- where did you purchase your water storage tanks?

 

[dsandfort]

Couple of thoughts.

Since you're building, I'd recommend an electrical sub-panel in the room. That way you can wire the room any way you want.

If you can, have a floor drain installed. I agree with porthios on sealing the room to contain spills but it's nice to have somewhere for the water to go.
The sink is a must have in my opinion.

If there is an exterior wall, I'd put some vents to the room. I have 2 in my room and have a fan on a controller that comes on when humidity goes over 50% or air temp goes over 78. The other vent acts as make-up air. In Colorado, it helps cool the room quickly.

Oh yeah..I finished my room with white FRP and love it. Nice and bright and very cleanable.

Have fun planning.

Del

 

[Untamed12]

Excellent input. Thank you. Untamed -- where did you purchase your water storage tanks?

I got them online at www.plasticmart.com

...and I did forget to mention ventilating the room. That is important as it prevents build up of heat and humidity. In my case, I just vent the room directly outside. That is pretty wasteful of usable heat. Some use an HRV to recover the heat before venting outside.

 

[Fizz71]

Having recently done this myself here is what I'm still "missing":

* Venting...D*mn it got hot and humid last summer, I have to fix it in the next few weeks.
* Sink..my basement is below the drain line (without breaking concrete) so I have no sink and really wish I did. Luckily I have a floor drain.

Here is what I HAVE done and am damn glad...
* Ran my own electrical with switched outlets so water changes are just a matter of opening some ball valves and throwing some switches....Oh yeah!!!]
* Top-off is all gravity fed...zero pumps, multiple redundancies on the automation from spigot to tank.

I spent MONTHS designing my sump room making sure I have room for all the equipment as well as how the water change and top-off will flow since they were my 2 most important previously PITA maintenance tasks. I even used the google sketch op so I could see the room before I started...but I'm a computer geek so it was easy for me.

 

[jallen18]

I am also in the planning stage of a fish room! We are closing on our new house in less than a month, and I have the go ahead for a fish room. (hard part, CHECK).

I have a couple of rough ideas of how to do this, I will show the current (rough estimate) layout, and one idea I have.

Current:

Proposed:

I am definitely planning on installing most of the suggestions listed in this thread, including the vent to outside fan (there is a small window on the north side not pictured in the plans, this is in the basement), and I will be installing a sink with hot/cold that drains. I'm not certain on the floor drain, the sump pump for the house would be located in this room, is it unwise to drain into that? (assuming emergency spills only).

This will for the most part be a DIY job, so I will be likely doing this in small chunks, and budget will play a large role as well! Thanks for the tips and suggestions provided already, Bucket Boy - I hope I'm not thread hijacking, just figured a lot of the info would apply to both of us =)

 

[Untamed12]

Nice work... Here's some things to think about.

I've found it particularly nice to have the sink immediately close to the actual display tank. Consider using that spot in the corner of the fish room right beside the display tank for the sink.

I really love being able to see into the aquarium from the fish room. That means leaving the back panel of the aquarium clear. Consider a removable back panel if you find the view through into the fish room to be unpleasant. I painted my fish room dark blue and that has worked fine for me. As is, I never cover up the back side any more. I would NEVER want a fish room that didn't let me see inside the tank.

You are going to get a wicked reflection of the tank on your TV. Especially if it is a plasma. You may have flip the entire family room around...which might not be so bad as it will enable you to see both the TV and Aquarium at the same time.

I kind of wish that I had put a raised floor in my fish room so that I could run pipes under my feet if necessary. I'm not sure if that is a table or your sump on the wall opposite the display. Don't put your sump under the display tank if you can avoid it. It is very nice to have complete access to your sump.

I don't see your FW storage or SW mixing tanks in your plan....They need to be there somewhere.

 

[Untamed12]

I would also build a wall to hide the utility room from the family room.

Hmmm....as you try to wall in the utility room...could you expose the right end of the aquarium so that you had two-sided viewing? It would be nice to see the right end of the aquarium as you entered the family room from the stairwell.

 

[jallen18]

GREAT suggestions Untamed, I hadn't thought about the tank reflection on the TV.. we have a projection screen that will come down in front of the TV for movie watching as well, so I dont think I would swap them top to bottom, but mostly likely put the TV and screen on that right wall, so the Tank would be on the left.

We considered this originally, and thought that the light from the tank would diminish the quality when using the projector, so we had an idea of "curtains" that we could close in front of the tank. Anyone do anything similar to this?

I really like the idea of exposing one of the sides of the tank as well, in fact, I think in my latest revision, I had extended the south wall of the fish room to be parallel with the stairs. So I could "square off" the utility room, and have more fish room space to boot.

Are there any structural considerations when building the tank into the corner of the fish room? In terms of supporting the framing and drywall above the tank. Especially if I find a deal on a larger sized tank?

 

[mx36]

Jallen18, it looks like you will be taking out a complete wall, you might check to make sure it is not a load bearing wall. Other than that it looks like a nice design.

 

[Fizz71]

You better make sure that family room wall you're removing isn't load bearing. And me personally I'd rotate the couch and TV clockwise 90deg so you could see both the tv AND the tank from the couch. It would also give you better throw distance for your projection.

And +1 for either closing in the laundry room or moving the tank to the corner for 2 sided viewing.

 

[maroun.c]

Had similar plans for my room layout but then was warned about the TV reflection on the tank and the fact that it's best to see both the TV and tank at the same time.
I ended up puttinmg the tank and TV at 90 degress from each other, ie on your sketch the TV goes facing the bedroom and the seats go in it's place.
I had the TV on a rotating support so It can be angled out if you need be more in front of the screen, in your case having the seats in L shape allows you to better view the tank and TV.
will try to post the plans to my room.
Looking good so far.

 

[Bucket Boy]

Jallen 18 -- No problem. Hijacking not perceived. All input is helpful to everyone.

 

[porthios]

structural engineers are neither expensive nor difficult to talk to. mine helped immensely.

 

[Lightsluvr]

Lessons learned...

Lessons learned...

If you have no life at all, you might want to read my build thread, starting with Part I, page 1 - where I converted an old office into a 10x14 fish room for a 350G in-wall tank, thinking I would never use all that space... Now I wish I had another 6' depth in there...
I cover water management, electrical, venting and all that jazz in the thread... which is now almost 80 pages in two parts.

I did without a sink and floor drain , as there is no plumbing on that side of the house... but I made do with exterior drains and water sources for RO/DI.

Good luck on your project.

LL