pch90265
Premium Member
If you followed my last thread on this board, then you know that in December of 2004 I left behind a tank that I had poured my efforts into for over a year. My family, and the tank, were victims of circumstance -- a job change that came to fruition over the space of a couple of weeks after 24 months of lobbying for the promotion I eventually received. So, in the space of about eight weeks we sold our house, packed up what we could take with us from our aquatic adventures in California, and we moved to Monument, Colorado (about 2/3 of the way to Colorado Springs from Denver, if you don't know the area.)
Here's a photo of our new house from when I was browsing in early January. It was completed two days before we closed on it in the middle of Jan.
The house is a "rancher" with a walk-out basement. I can't describe the blessing we feel to have upgraded from a 950 sq ft home in Cali... even if the other house did have a separate building for my fish tank.
I'm stoked that we found a home with amazing workmanship in a neighborhood where I don't have to worry about my 3rd grader being sold crank at his elementary school. Everything is custom from the moulding to the cabinets to the light fixtures [eg, the moulding was milled to spec on a saw profile that the finish-carpenter designed himself, not pulled off the shelf at Lowe's]
Aside from the workmanship, I was also really attracted to the layout of the house. Rather than chunking the space down into a bizillion (I believe that is the scientific term...) little rooms, the builder chose to open the floor plan up and build the upstairs and downstairs each around a greatroom. Both are about 35' long, with the greatroom in the basement being about 35' x 15'. Here's a shot of the "family room" downstairs (thanks for posing in the room for scale dad...)
Just to the right of where my dad is standing in the long shot above is where I'm going to set the tank. It will be opposite the bar, and a sitting area we've put at that end of the room. So, there will be plenty of opportunity to hang out and stare at the tank -- in fact, I expect the family room to get much more use once the tank is down there.
Aside from the aesthetics of the location at that end of the room, another factor came into play in putting it there. Immediately behind the wall we've chosen for the tank are a storage closet under the stairs, and our utility room. The utility room is concrete slab [as is the rest of the basement, under the carpet,] has a floor drain, has a water spigot, and houses the main panel for the house. All in all, it's an ideal spot. Here's my rough overlay of the tank's location relative to the wall...
The wall's width from the stairs to the hallway is 84", but I have to leave a little room to access the furnace inlet... so, I'm looking at a 83" x 33.5" x 25.5" tank from James at Envision. That works out to about 270 Gallons of internal volume. One of the cool coincidences of the location my wife and I agreed to is around the construction of the wall. You'll notice in the pic above the wall changes depth -- by about 3" -- as a result of a load bearing post the builder couldn't move when he rearranged the floor plan to a greatroom concept. So, I'm planning to have James build the tank with an external overflow [about 6"] and use the resulting 3" space between the wall and the rest of the tank for running cords, plumbing, etc.
As readers of my previous thread may remember, my wife is almost as into our tanks as I am into putting them together, so selling her on the idea of getting a tank running wasn't hard. However, there was a little post-move clean up to do. Here's a shot of the Utility Room in its post-move state, and then the recently [last weekend] organized state. I'm planning to put up a 8' tall false wall in front of the white batting you see to act as a moisture barrier and a backing for hanging RO/DI, UV sterilizer, etc... once that's done it will leave me with a roughly 9' x 4' area for my sump, pumps, and skimmer. Depending on how I arrange the area, it will likely also leave me with room to stand up my old 135G corner tank as a refugium that gravity drains directly into the sump.
Between this area and the tank there is, as mentioned, a closet, and a crawl space. My wife, bless her, has agreed that running a pair of 2" drains and a 1 1/2" return through the closet is an acceptable use of space, so I won't have to kluge together a stand that leaves a big ol' hole for the furnace intake... I just have to make the tank/stand narrow enough that I don't block it. Speaking of stands -- if anybody who checks out this thread knows a good welder in Denver or [preferably] Colorado Springs, let me know. I've decided to follow the current trend and have my stand made of 2" x 2" steel, rather than building my own wooden frame. I'm going to have the cabinet maker who did our house skin the frame with the same Alder wood facing and doors that run throughout the house for that "built-in" look.
I hope to have a nice layout/schematic of my plans posted by Friday... as always, please feel free to comment and critique.
Thank you again to everyone who tagged on to the old thread. I hope this one is equally entertaining to you over time, even though I'm not cutting holes in my roof or pouring 12" concrete piers in place for this one.
Cheers
--Sean--
Here's a photo of our new house from when I was browsing in early January. It was completed two days before we closed on it in the middle of Jan.
The house is a "rancher" with a walk-out basement. I can't describe the blessing we feel to have upgraded from a 950 sq ft home in Cali... even if the other house did have a separate building for my fish tank.
I'm stoked that we found a home with amazing workmanship in a neighborhood where I don't have to worry about my 3rd grader being sold crank at his elementary school. Everything is custom from the moulding to the cabinets to the light fixtures [eg, the moulding was milled to spec on a saw profile that the finish-carpenter designed himself, not pulled off the shelf at Lowe's]Aside from the workmanship, I was also really attracted to the layout of the house. Rather than chunking the space down into a bizillion (I believe that is the scientific term...) little rooms, the builder chose to open the floor plan up and build the upstairs and downstairs each around a greatroom. Both are about 35' long, with the greatroom in the basement being about 35' x 15'. Here's a shot of the "family room" downstairs (thanks for posing in the room for scale dad...)
Just to the right of where my dad is standing in the long shot above is where I'm going to set the tank. It will be opposite the bar, and a sitting area we've put at that end of the room. So, there will be plenty of opportunity to hang out and stare at the tank -- in fact, I expect the family room to get much more use once the tank is down there.
Aside from the aesthetics of the location at that end of the room, another factor came into play in putting it there. Immediately behind the wall we've chosen for the tank are a storage closet under the stairs, and our utility room. The utility room is concrete slab [as is the rest of the basement, under the carpet,] has a floor drain, has a water spigot, and houses the main panel for the house. All in all, it's an ideal spot. Here's my rough overlay of the tank's location relative to the wall...
The wall's width from the stairs to the hallway is 84", but I have to leave a little room to access the furnace inlet... so, I'm looking at a 83" x 33.5" x 25.5" tank from James at Envision. That works out to about 270 Gallons of internal volume. One of the cool coincidences of the location my wife and I agreed to is around the construction of the wall. You'll notice in the pic above the wall changes depth -- by about 3" -- as a result of a load bearing post the builder couldn't move when he rearranged the floor plan to a greatroom concept. So, I'm planning to have James build the tank with an external overflow [about 6"] and use the resulting 3" space between the wall and the rest of the tank for running cords, plumbing, etc.
As readers of my previous thread may remember, my wife is almost as into our tanks as I am into putting them together, so selling her on the idea of getting a tank running wasn't hard. However, there was a little post-move clean up to do. Here's a shot of the Utility Room in its post-move state, and then the recently [last weekend] organized state. I'm planning to put up a 8' tall false wall in front of the white batting you see to act as a moisture barrier and a backing for hanging RO/DI, UV sterilizer, etc... once that's done it will leave me with a roughly 9' x 4' area for my sump, pumps, and skimmer. Depending on how I arrange the area, it will likely also leave me with room to stand up my old 135G corner tank as a refugium that gravity drains directly into the sump.
Between this area and the tank there is, as mentioned, a closet, and a crawl space. My wife, bless her, has agreed that running a pair of 2" drains and a 1 1/2" return through the closet is an acceptable use of space, so I won't have to kluge together a stand that leaves a big ol' hole for the furnace intake... I just have to make the tank/stand narrow enough that I don't block it. Speaking of stands -- if anybody who checks out this thread knows a good welder in Denver or [preferably] Colorado Springs, let me know. I've decided to follow the current trend and have my stand made of 2" x 2" steel, rather than building my own wooden frame. I'm going to have the cabinet maker who did our house skin the frame with the same Alder wood facing and doors that run throughout the house for that "built-in" look.
I hope to have a nice layout/schematic of my plans posted by Friday... as always, please feel free to comment and critique.
Thank you again to everyone who tagged on to the old thread. I hope this one is equally entertaining to you over time, even though I'm not cutting holes in my roof or pouring 12" concrete piers in place for this one.
Cheers
--Sean--
see the buttons below the reset form button use them 
)when I get home from D.C. this weekend, and we'll be ready for a few hundred # LR!
