Looking for basement setup suggestions

[PrisonCityReef]

First of all: I (like some of you) married one of the best females in the world. She said that whatever I wanted to do in the basement I could. (All it cost me was letting her pick out some carpet for the living room... so far...)

I'm planning on setting up a 75g in the living room and piping it downstairs this spring. (I know, I know. Yet another PCR plan. At least I actually HAVE a tank running these days!)

Downstairs I have a concrete floor and masonry walls. I have a corner area to work with. What should I think about plumbing into the system?

So far:
- RO unit & reservoir plumbed for easy dumping into a saltwater mixing tank or directly to sump for top offs
- Mixing tank that easily pours into sump for water changes
- Sump with skimmer, fuge, and return pump.
- 'dumping' valve piped directly to a sink for water changes
- Some sort of media / filter / additive setup - looking for input on this...
- a counter top for fragging / tinkering
- QT (have a valve for filling T off the return line??)

What suggestions do you folks have? I've seen some MASSIVE setups in people's basements, and some more modest ones. What do you love in your system, what does someone else have that makes you jealous, and what tips do you have for me as I start planning mine?

 

[Bri Guy]

tagging along, for I am in the early planning stages of a basement system also (but my tank would be down there too)

I like all the ideas you have, others to think about....

A dedicated electrical line or two for just the tank.

Humidity control with the added volume of water.

Floor and or wall sealant for spills and splashes.

 

[PrisonCityReef]

Good call(s). I have the breaker box a bit down the wall, so 2 tank-dedicated breakers are planned. There is a dehumidifier mounted up on the wall nearby (drains directly to the sink as well) so that is covered also.

Good idea on the sealant though. The floor is painted, but could use another coat.

I hope to get pretty geeky on this and do some diagrams and such, so hopefully they will be of some use to you Bri.

 

[Fishcrazy06]

Utility sink!!! All of your ideas are good ones. The one thing I think you will love is the addition of a Utility sink for cleaning etc.......Water Volume! Get as much as you can for water Volume. Stock tank for a sump for the shear size of them and what you can all do with them. Skimmer, Calcium reactor, Live rock, and heater can all fit inside of it if you get one big enough! Frag Tank, Fuge tank, etc.......Best bet is to keep looking at peoples build threads and go from there. Or go to Oh HOLY ONE JHILDEBRANDS! He has one of the greatest Fishrooms in the area!!!

 

[customcolor]

make shure you have gfci's and good covers for your outlets...the ones that are still closed when you have a plug in them..granted they are $14 a pop at lowes but dripping water on an outlet that is not covered would be scary!! plan out to see if you have enough outlets in the area to...always have a few extra...you know that you will add more stuff to it all

im working on redoing my electric and i still need more outlets....i already spent 200 on boxes,wire,cutter/striper, outlet covers, pvc conduit and a few other things..

 

[Jhildebrand]

I love my fish room, but I gotta say if I was starting over from scratch it would be different. In a little over two years since I got the okay to punch holes in the floor I've redone the major plumbing twice and had to take a partition wall down because the original 6x8 room was a joke for what I wanted to do. I can certainly help you with what not to do. Great that you have some time to plan. I did it all hodgepodge as I went along - and as I saved the cash.

More things to consider:

Plumbing correctly - HD and Menards ball valves are junk. Get the good union ball valves from bulk reef for your return and never look back. I can also get you knife valves at cost from work and these have been excellent for me for diverting water when needed.

Which brings me to the next point - for the love of god build safeguards into the system so any one component can be taken offline in the event of an emergency without having to shut down the whole system. When my 75 'fuge failed due to an old shoddy repair, this saved me from a huge problem. All you have to do is open and close valves for repair or removal.

Set up a drain for water changes. Screw buckets and pumps and never look back. Open a valve and drain water and detritus from your sump and replace with fresh saltwater.

Get a bulk tank for RO water so you can make a nice size batch all at once. This can also be used for water changes.

Just in case, leave room next to it for if you decide to get a dedicated water change tub.

Plan an auto shutoff so you don't get RO all over your basement when forgetting your RO.

Tunze Osmolator topoff so you don't have to worry about dumping 50 gallons of RO in your tank and killing everything. It's the only electronic eye topoff and has multiple safeguards built in.

Get a good pump and pay attention to energy efficiency, reliability, and noise level. It's the workhorse that keeps you going and you can't afford to skimp here. Get one rated a little higher than you need - you can valve it back a little or....

....plumb in a manifold over your sump. Tee it off your main pump so you can run all skimmers, reactors, etc... with it. One line can also blow water through the sump to keep it clear of detritus 24/7.

Make sure your sump is big enough. Reactors, skimmers, extra live rock etc... takes up a lot of space. Freeland Industries farm stock tanks are cheap, sturdy, and better than Rubbermaid's version. I use three at the moment. Fleet Farm.

Consider Uniseals instead of bulkheads where you can. They are inexpensive and easy to install. They also work wonderful for plumbing a waste drain line into your main plumbing stack of the house or plumbing into a stock tank.

Sink is easy to add to house plumbing with no special skills and PEX pipe instead of copper. Regular laundry sink. You don't want to take your skimmer upstairs to clean and you will need to dump water and wash hands more than you could imagine. Get a double tub sink so when you wash something you have a place to dry it without it being in the way. Better yet, go ReeferAl style and get an old fiberglass bathtub of Craigslist and make a stand out of 2x4's so it's at waist height so you can easily clean any size item you want. My single laundry tub doesn't cut it.

Go the extra mile and put hot water into your sink as well. You won't regret it.

Start looking for a good used dehumidifier now.

Put a check valve over your return pump so when you shut it off you don't get 10 gallons of water rushing into your sump and stirring the crap out of its contents.

Post an electrical plan or ask for help with a qualified person. GFCI's mandatory. So is a dedicated circuit for equipment.

Go with 1.5" drains. Extra room to play with is good, not enough very bad. Use spaflex with hard PVC to make plumbing simple.

Just off the top of my head, I'll be back lots :bigsmile:

 

[Fishcrazy06]

I forgot about Allen's Tub! That is Sweet! Check out menards and such for an old display model they are closing out!

 

[Jhildebrand]

CL sometimes has them free or $20. Also check Habitat for Humanity's ReStore. I just got a 150W halide fixture for $5 Hit and miss though. That tub would take some real estate up. How big is your workable area? How high are ceilings? There's a super thread on RC for building 2x4 stands dirt cheap. It's a nice design. How many tanks? Or just a sump? Refugium? Frag tank?

 

[PrisonCityReef]

CL sometimes has them free or $20. Also check Habitat for Humanity's ReStore. I just got a 150W halide fixture for $5 Hit and miss though. That tub would take some real estate up. How big is your workable area? How high are ceilings? There's a super thread on RC for building 2x4 stands dirt cheap. It's a nice design. How many tanks? Or just a sump? Refugium? Frag tank?

Yes.

Honestly, I'm not sure yet. I have all the space I should need TBH. I assume I'll allot myself about 8' of the wall on one side and 4'-6' on the other. Ceilings are just the standard 8' basement ceilings with exposed rafters. I'm asking for ideas so I can sort out how it will all work in my head then draw up a plan for you folks to critique.

 

[MSU Fan]

Start looking for a good used dehumidifier now.

Skip this, as these are incredible electricity hogs. Get a bathroom exhaust fan (again, pay attention to noise on this one) and tie it to a good wall mount humidistat. Much more energy efficient, less noisy (in general) than a dehumidifier. The only downside is that it can remove heat from your home, so if it runs for a long time you may see a temp drop. If you close in your fish area, then that shouldn't be a large problem.

 

[PrisonCityReef]

Has anyone experimented with cutting some plexi covers for their sumps to reduce the amount of humidity? Why let it all evaporate, pay to make more water, then pay to remove the water from the air?

 

[Tank102a]

Tagging along for this one. I'm gonna build a Basement fish room myself in the spring.
How do some of you deal with the noise? Water falling to my sump is pretty noisy and you need a durso stand pipe, how about falling 8-10 feet to a basement sump?

Thanks

 

[Jhildebrand]

Skip this, as these are incredible electricity hogs. Get a bathroom exhaust fan (again, pay attention to noise on this one) and tie it to a good wall mount humidistat. Much more energy efficient, less noisy (in general) than a dehumidifier. The only downside is that it can remove heat from your home, so if it runs for a long time you may see a temp drop. If you close in your fish area, then that shouldn't be a large problem.

In my case, I have no other option. Air/heat exchangers are terribly expensive and venting warm air out just makes your heat bill go up - from your tank heaters and your home furnace. Most people that run exhaust fans are from much warmer areas. It'll work, but at a cost. If the square footage in your basement isn't huge, an efficient dehumidifier isn't awful. Either way, make sure you measure humidity, so you'll know if you have an issue before it causes problems.

If you box in your fish room super tight you can have gas exchange problems that can lead to lower pH. When I had my walls around my little fish closet, pH dropped like a rock. Every house is going to be different in how much or how ittle humidity is a factor.

 

[Bri Guy]

Has anyone experimented with cutting some plexi covers for their sumps to reduce the amount of humidity? Why let it all evaporate, pay to make more water, then pay to remove the water from the air?

Evaporation is the cheapest way of keeping your reef cool, the basement sump may help with that, but usually you let it evaporate, sometimes even encourage it.

So you may be able to cover it in the winter (when humidity isn't a problem) but would need it uncovered in the summer (thats when you will be fighting the humidity)

You will have to get your tank up and running for a year and see what the temp swings are through the season, then see what you can incorporate in your system.

Good Luck!

 

[Bri Guy]

If you box in your fish room super tight you can have gas exchange problems that can lead to lower pH.

See now, this was going to be an Idea of mine, I didn't want to run my a/c in the summer all day every day through the whole house just for my tank, so I planned on putting it in wall and seal off the sump room (keeping the tank/air/water/humidity all in one place) Then temp/humidity control this room.

I have lower pH now and thats got me concerned. I know about the lower pH due to high CO2 levels, are you saying that the tank creates enough CO2 itself to lower its own pH, if you seal it off?

Please explain....

 

[Jhildebrand]

Maybe Jeremy can jump in at some point and help out with the reasoning, but here's what I dealt with:

I monitor my pH constantly as I run on the low end of the spectrum, partly due to my calcium reactor. When my fish room was small I had roughly 250gal of water in the basement and 260gal upstairs in the display. As soon as I installed the door on the small room, my pH dropped from a range of 7.9 - 8.1 down to 7.6 to 7.8. I can only assume that the sealed room was at fault, because opening the room back up raised the pH back to its former levels.

 

[jandlms]

Get GOOD check valves for your return to the upstairs tank. I used the Home Depot variety and it failed the first time it was needed. If you drill multiple returns to your tank (as I did) and those returns are lower down in the tank you need good check valves. OR the first time the power fails you have a great deal of water overflowing your sump.
GET GOOD CHECK VALVES as I am soon going to do.