MY 525 Peninsula With Fish Room.

[anit77]

Fist a little about myself. I had always wanted to start a salt water aquarium for as long as I can remember but never got around to it, one thing or another always came up. In the summer of 99' My wife and I bought our first house and a couple years later we started finishing the basement. I had framed it out with a small 90sf fish room and an opening in the wall for a 6' 220 to do an inwall display. The opening was closed off with a thin sheet of plywood and trimmed while I started recouping funds after the basement was done. I bought couple books and started researching the hobby. By the time I was ready to start the build process the recession hit and I started cutting nonessentials from the budget and the aquarium was one of those cuts. The fish room became a storage room and the hole in the wall was officially named "The Nook".

Fast forward ten years. My wife an I were channel surfing one night in the spring of 15' and we came across Tanked on Animal Planet. We kinda got hooked watching those goofballs and during one episode my wife told me I should think about starting that aquarium project back up in the basement and I thought it was a good idea. So I started researching again and found this forum along with several other sites and I also joined the local club in Atlanta. I spent the better part of a year reading and collecting components and by 6/1/16 I had first water. I thought I had a firm grasp of what I was doing, little did I know I had a lot more to learn. The first year was a rough one. The uglys were, well, ugly, for several months I fought GHA, cyano, Monti eating nudi's, Ich even with a QT... then due to dosing errors, precipitate in the sand and on heaters. Sometimes the best teacher is experience. After the first year I started finding my way through the darkness and the tank came into it's own. I added a frag tank, put in a bigger sump and skimmer and continued to learn. By 2018 the tank was doing pretty good and my wife wanted to do some remodeling upstairs. I though the tank is running well enough that I can devote more time in other areas. After getting some estimates and figuring what we could do ourselves we got to work and after two months the whole house was basically remodeled. Through is all the worst that happened with the system was a bad outbreak of cyano, not too bad. The corals we're doing great and I hadn't lost anything. Another year goes by and the housing market went nuts around us, we decide if we're going to move, now was the time. After a few months of looking we found a lot in a new subdivision that had a large ranch with a basement planned for it and we starting the buying process. In Sept 19' I shut down the system and a local club member agreed to hold the livestock that I wanted to keep. I sold off everything else and we moved in October. I had hoped to get the basement finished and get the new system up and running by the spring. Well, like the first time around, things don't always work out the way you'd hoped they would.

This is the basement the way it was last winter before we got started. During this time we had a dedicated HVAC system put in and ran all the electrical wiring. I also put in an oversized HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilator).

The taped off area is where the new display is going with the fish room behind.

This is where things were in August, with about a third of the basement finished, the walls are primed and the display roughly in place.

And here's the fish room.

This weren't moving as fast as I hoped but there was still progress and I was excited to keep going. Then if covid and all the other delays weren't enough in this crazy year... I screwed my knee up at the end of August and was operated on the first week of September. Total bummer and a grinding halt to the work.
Over the last couple weeks I've been able to get back to working a little at a time and got the close loop plumbed while also getting starting on the drains. Tomorrow I plan to cut into the wall for the drain and supply lines, while also adding one more outlet on the display side.

This is how the tank sits now.

Here's the info on the system:

The tank is a 3/4" acrylic 96x48x29 with a steel stand and was made by MRC.
It's around 525 gallons filled to top but at the running height is about 480 gallons. There will be a 60 frag plumbed in and the sump is an old MRC 150. I figure the system volume will be around 600 gallons. I plan on upgrading the sump at some point in a year or so.
Circulation will start with two MP60's and two Vectra L2's for the closed loop. I may add two more MP60's if I don't like to flow patterns.
I have not figured out what I'm going to do for the lights yet.
Everything will be controlled by an Apex.

When I get the fish room cleaned up and organized I'll post up some more pics. In the mean time here's a shot of the mixing station. I know it's pretty large but there will also be a frag system in the fish room consisting of two 115 gallon troughs with a 120 sump along with multiple QT tanks. The duct in the upper right in the intake for the HRV and the unit is behind me on the right.

Thanks for following along. The next few months should be a pretty wild ride.

 

[New Jersey REEF]

Following ... I know it’s gonna be awesome build!

 

[Smarkow]

Very cool! Glad your patience has helped you stick with this hobby, so that I can live vicariously through this build

 

[Bfragale]

Can’t wait to see more! Looks like the beginnings of a dream set up. Following...

 

[Ashish Patel]

Congrats on the new build. Everything looks great and will be sure to keep an eye on this one.

 

[fishguy242]

very nice ,following along

 

[MERKEY]

Great build so far, following for sure!!

 

[anit77]

I got some work done over the weekend. The hole is in the wall for the drain and return lines and added an outlet lower down behind the stand. In total I have five dedicated 20amp circuits and three 15amp circuits. Most of them are in the fish room. One 20A is in the ceiling above the tank for the lighting and the one behind the stand was ran off of a 20A on the other side of the of the adjoining wall.

I also got the final assembly done last frag system stand. I haven't gone into those much but there will be two 84x35x13 frag tanks in the fish room. They will be running separate on their own 120g sump. The total volume on that system will be about 300 gallons.

Another thing I got done was setting up the first fish QT tank, just a simple 20L setup. There is now first life in the basement! A Tomini Tang I bought from a local club member. It will be going in one of the frag tanks.
I didn't think about this before getting the fish but I still have to seal the wooden frag stands. They were assembled in the fish room and are too big to get out of there. I'm sealing them with an oil based Spar Urethane and I'm worried about the fumes killing the fish. If any one has any thoughts on this I'd love to hear them. I don't want to have to do this but I may need to move the whole QT upstairs to get it out of the basement.

This week I have a lot planned for after work. I need to get the final duct work installed on the HRV and run the wiring for it's control panel. Part of the hope is the ventilation will help some with the fumes. I still plan on wearing a respirator so that QT is a big question mark in the back of my mind. I also need to paint the walls in the display room. I started some of the final sanding last night but quickly tired of not having enough light or power. So I stopped and finished the lighting circuit before calling it a night. Tonight I'm going to put all the outlets in the room and hook up the breaker for that circuit in the panel, then get back to sanding. I need to get the room painted and the tank put back in place before 11/7 when I have a friend coming over the help me skin the stand and build the canopy. My hope is to have the room finished before the weekend so I can get started on the plumbing. I just hope my knee holds up.

 

[brett_schn]

Following along!

 

[egghead43]

Following