In-Wall with Basement Fish Room

[ScottW]

I had a build thread going for my RSR250, but that has been torn down and sold. It is hard for me to go from my 800 gallon DT to a small cube, larger cuber, RSR250, so I am having troubles finding something I like. I have a limited amount of room for the in-wall tank b/c I can only use it on 1 wall to be able to use my basement room as a dedicated fish room, this will have to tide me over, I can have a few tanks in this room. This won't be a quick build as I am in the process of emptying out the room. It was used for storage, so there are racks, and crap I have to eliminate, etc. The room isn't finished and I am having a hard time dealing with this, I hate the look of an unfinished room, but do I spend $3900 finishing it, or put $3,900 in equipment, fish, and corals, that is my dilemma. Would you finish it or spend the money on cool stuff lol?

The idea of the frag tanks is to trade with folks for things I don't have, I hate spending hard earned cash on corals that could potentially expire due to an error I make, etc. So if I can spend the money 1 time, and then trade for things I want that others need, it makes this hobby a lot more fun! I have a good buddy with a hookup for the "rare corals", so the cost won't be as high since he is a close friend, everyone needs one of those friends!

The in-wall will be 40x30x24 (this may change hoping to go to 44-46") with ~4" in the wall and ~26" in my office. The office side will have a nice stand/skin and canopy, and the other side will have a picture frame around it. The placement of that tank isn't my favorite, but the wall I was going to do a 10' tank on won't work b/c the garage door track mounts are in the way so it would be off centered, and I don't want to do a smaller tank on that wall, so I will just have to live with the 40x30x24. The basement is an in-law/my father suite) so I can't put it down there, that would be rude of me lol, trust me I thought long and hard about it, why does 1 man need 1500 sq. feet of living space right?

Equipment I will be running on this setup as follows (have most on hand already)

Tank(s) and Equipment

DT - 40x30x24 (ordering) trying to go 2-3" longer I will know more after I cut the hole in the wall next week
Frag Tank 1 - 60x24x13 (running)
Frag Tank 2 - 70 GALLON PREMIUM WHITE RESERVOIR 55.25" x 38.25" x 12" (just bought today from the "tomato growers shop") This will be a QT tank for corals, all corals will go into this system for 2-3 months before going into the other frag tank or DT
QT Tank - 29 gallon tall - all fish go in here for minimum of 2 months before going into Frag System or Frag QT system or DT.
Sump 1- 48x18x15 (running)
Sump 2 - Not decided yet, this will be for the 70 gallon Res/Coral QT
Skimmer - Bubble King 300 Internal (Trading for a Bubble King 300 Ext) doesn't fit in my sump so I am going to swap with another r2r member.
Pumps - 2 x EcoTech L2
In-Tank Water Flow - 5 x MP40, Jebao x 2 (wanted to try them) - Adding 3 more MP40's
Controller - Apex 2016 with ATKv2, 3 x EB832, and a few other modules, Trident (once I can get one)
Dosing - Neptune DOS x 2, Jebao WiFi 3.4 (new version) x 2
Lighting - XR15 Gen 4 Pro x 2, XR30 Gen 4 Pro x 2, Reef Brite XHO x 4, T5's 60" x 4, Reef Republik LED x 2, 24" 8 bulb ATI Powermodule (buying today from r2r member)
Water Storage - 65 gallon white vertical storage tank x 2 (need to drive 2 hours to pickup)
UV - Undecided
Carbon Reactor - BRS Dual Reactor
Sink - Installing next week with above floor sump pump (arrives today)
RODI - Vertex 100 GPD, with an additional 3 DI chambers (BRS).

I am sure I am forgetting things, so much goes into these builds. I am hoping having a fish room will make up for the small DT. If not, my wife may kick me out of the house, b/c this is the 6th tank I will have setup in 3.5 years of being in this house we built. Once I put in a large hole for the in-wall I will NOT even think about asking to change it lol.

Here is the Frag tank being built. I went with the best and that is Acrylic Habitats (with over 30 years of exp., I was sure he was the right man for job) He builds for WWC, so I am sure he is good enough for my small project lol.

You will see my frag tank, it looks like a nano tank next to WWC's new 250 gallon sump, they had 8 of them built. I can post this photo now b/c @WWC has posted it up in their build, I didn't want to before they did.

I went with a 60x24x13 with radius edges and external overflow, so I wouldn't scrape up my arms as I am always playing in the tank. I went with a small Euro Brace b/c I like the small lip to help keep jumpers in and its easier to set the lid on to ensure they stay in the tank. Once I decide exactly how big I can go, he will build the DT tank too.

 

[Jon Fishman]

Nice looking workshop and nice start

 

[JustAnotherNanoTank]

Can’t wait to see it! Following for sure!

 

[ScottW]

Nice looking workshop and nice start

I wish that was my workshop, but that is the workshop of the tank builder! Embarrassingly I will post a couple pics of MY fish room, again it pains me this room isn't finished. And its a total mess, but looks a little better from the photos I am going to post as this project has been moving along.

I had a 48x24x12 frag tank setup to hold the stuff from my rsr250, a local fish club member had an emergency and needed a tank quickly, so I had to break it down and setup my temp 150 gallon rubbermaid, the new 60x24x13 wasn't due to arrive until that following Tuesday, this was the previous Friday, and she needed help, so I broke it down and set up that HUGE rubbermaid, anything to help out a reefer in need!

Please don't judge, I am embarrassed its not finished haha. But, it is better than no fish room for me haha.

Temp Sump (now sold)

MESS MESS MESS.. grrr. but I had to break this down in a couple hours so stuff went everywhere.

At this point I got the new tank in, and had to move the stand out, and I had to put up some nice plywood behind the tank, I didn't have the skills to do drywall, didn't want the dust, so I at least made it look a little better on my eyes, again still hate its not finished. I added another sheet next to it to fill in the wall, then painted it with some exterior latex (wife painted it, I stood and watched lol. I didn't get a pic but will. I had 2 x 20 amp dedicated runs installed into the room, each has 4 outlets per 20 amp. That will be plenty for the amount of stuff I will have in here.

SORRY FOR THE BLUE PHOTOS. I will get some better updated pics, the blue just kills photos, but I hate white lol.

Here she is in her place with temp lighting, temp room setup. That rack to the left is already broken down and given to my wife's sister who is moving down here, so I gave her a gift of 2 of those that were in this room lol.

 

[ScottW]

Decided to go with a Bubble King 200 Deluxe skimmer. I feel like the 300 was just to big and my bio load won't ever be high enough to need the 300. It was delivered last night, and I set it up in about 20 minutes. I spoke with Scott with AS and Scott with RE and we all agreed that the 200 was the best choice.

Packaged well.

Set her in the sump and plugged it in, ran at 32 watts. 28-32 is the best setting for contact time. I wanted a little more watts to break her in. I will drop down to 30 and adjust with the pipes, I wanted to let it break in for 24-48 hours before I fool with it.

This is exactly 2 hours later, I plugged it in, left to take my daughter to soccer practice, came back and she was already taking care of the dissolved organic materials in the tank!