Saltwater Pool House Reef

Spectre2006

Spectre2006

Reef Addict
I live up in the northeast, and was debating on putting in a indoor pool house for the kids to enjoy year round in the frigid northeast temperatures. A portion of the pool house I was going to use for a large reef tank against the wall.

I started thinking how nice it would be to incorporate the reef directly into the pool. A large rectangular pool with one side against the wall with live rock and lighting.

1)What would the structure of the pool have to be constructed with to prevent leaching of harmful chemicals into the water?

I would imagine most of the pool to be clear and free with one wall of the pool to have live rock and lighting associated with it.

2)Is it even feasible to do something like this, since kids would be using the pool to swim?

A step up would exist against the wall to provide a shelf for live rock, and make it shallow enough for the lighting to be sufficient. All the gunk from the kids and family using the pool would have to filtered. Plus the pool would also contain fish. I want something that I can snorkel in and enjoy. Can this even be done?

Chris
 
Based on the described project and assuming you are a multimillionaire with unlimited funding, you could easily create an indoor swimming pool like any other made of concrete but sealed using an epoxy or with fibreglass. The whole pool could then be made to run in saltwater by adding the same sort of filtration used by public aquaria to handle the amount of additional waste the human occupants would add.

I hope you realize that the reef creatures will not stay put in one area just because the live rock started there or because extra lighting is there. As long as there is substrate of any kind, non-photosynthetic life will spread to cover the entire pool. You will then have to caution everyone what not to touch or go near if it is poisonous or aggressive in any way. The same thing must be applied in your choice of fish, as they will not long stay on one side of the pool. Fish are weird that way.

Dave.M
 
A reef aquarium would probably not be a great thing to swim in regularly unless you want to wear a full body rash guard. Your children will get stung all over from just being in the water and you'll be hearing complaints about itching for weeks.
 
If you really have the bucks you suggest may I recommend an alternate design? How about if you have a glass or acrylic wall on one side of your indoor pool. The people swim on one side, the reef on the other. The bodies of water would remain separated with separate filtration, lighting, heating and cooling. The reef side could be double-walled, so that a room on the far side would allow "dry" viewing. This would give you the best of both worlds: the ability to swim beside a reef, or the joy of watching your reef in comfort on the far side.

Dave.M
 
my only concern was the pool chemicals mixing with small amounts of water being splashed over glass barrier...

fiberglass pools of 11,000 gallons run with inground installation of 30-80K, the main expense is the structural addition to the house, the pool house would be segregated from the main house to protect the house from humidity damage.

any enclosure would have to insulate pool during harsh winters, so temperatures inside could be maintained easier...

the live rock would only be against one side of the pool with lighting directly from fixtures above on the wall.. so most of the pool would be free to swim with bottom being able to be touched without touching coral or rock.

I was looking at a budget of 250,000-300,000... its either that or a place in keys thats only used a few weeks out of the year.
 
dave.m said:
If you really have the bucks you suggest may I recommend an alternate design? How about if you have a glass or acrylic wall on one side of your indoor pool. The people swim on one side, the reef on the other. The bodies of water would remain separated with separate filtration, lighting, heating and cooling. The reef side could be double-walled, so that a room on the far side would allow "dry" viewing. This would give you the best of both worlds: the ability to swim beside a reef, or the joy of watching your reef in comfort on the far side.

Dave.M
Click to expand...

There is actually a house with this exact setup I know it was a long time ago when I saw it but I will try to find it again.
 
Thx, kduen. That is exactly the sort of arrangement I was thinking of. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Dave.M
 
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