- Joined
- Jan 9, 2017
- Messages
- 1,142
- Reaction score
- 1,063
I’ve been asked a number of times about starting a build thread. So I thought it was time to start documenting my crazy house and aquarium(s) build. Some of the decisions during the house construction literally happened overnight.
Here’s a quick overview of the aquariums, but before I get too far into the aquariums, I want to go back to the beginning and explain how this whole journey started……
My current setup:
250 gallon aquarium in family room
130 gallon aquarium in game room
Both of these tanks are plumbed together with one infloor concrete sump in the fish equipment room (more on this later)
Both tanks have been wet since October 2018. Things have not gone as expected (more on this also as I document this build).
Other tanks:
2 – 40 gallon breeder aquariums. These are being used as support tanks for my 250 and 130 gallon aquariums. These tanks are stacked in an Edsal metal storage rack.
60 gallon cube tank in fish equipment room. This tank is separate from the main setup and infloor sump. It has its own sump and support equipment.
Some history:
In December 2014 my wife Helen, our 2 beagles Kira and Dax, our cat Odo and I packed up and moved from NJ to Arizona. I was done with cold weather and I've always liked the Western US. I guess living in Colorado for 15+ years will do that to you. If it wasn't for the cold, I would have moved back to Colorado in a heartbeat. I definitely I made the right choice in moving to AZ. It does get hot, very hot here in the summer. For me, I like the heat. Anything now below 70 degrees is cold. LOL.
I like FW tanks and I've seen some really beautiful tanks, but about 8-9 years ago I started a SW tank. That was all that I needed; I was bitten by the SW bug. I have an EE degree and put it to use building DIY LED light systems for FW tanks. Having built FW LED lights for years, my friend Kevin who has had SW tanks for many years asked me to build him a SW LED light. The light worked great and I decided it was time for me to build one for myself and start my own SW tank. It worked great and I was very happy with the results.
Once we moved to AZ, Helen and I looked at a number of houses, but just couldn't find the right one. So we decided to look for property instead. This would allow us to design and build our own house. We are not new to building houses. This house is our 4th that we have built, and we also did an addition and garage conversion on our last house in NJ.
I feel that it is important to this aquarium build journal to document the house build that pertains to my aquariums since the two are integrated. Since we were building, I was able to integrate the future aquariums and equipment placement into the house design. You'll see as I continue this journal. Well let's get started.
The House
Here is a layout of the house. Most people downsize when they build, well technically we did downsize. Our last house was 3600 sq ft and the basement which was unfinished was another 1400 sq ft. So the house total was 5,000 sq ft. Our new place is 4829 sq ft.
View of lot prior to construction
View of when we were pouring/pumping concrete. If you zoom in to the left of the construction workers you can see two sets of black pipes with white caps on them. That's where my two tanks will eventually be.
The Aquarium Equipment Room (AER).
When we were designing the house, I was trying to position a tank near an outer wall so that I could add a room behind it. It seemed like no matter what we tried it just wasn't working. So I figured that my sump was going to be under my tanks and that would be it. In our design there was an 8x10 mechanical room that would have 2 of my HVAC units and hot water units. As time went on, the placement of the HVAC units moved to other locations. That got me thinking that maybe a remote aquarium equipment room (AER) might happen. I worked with the builder, showed him some of my crazy ideas. I then needed to get approval from the boss (Helen) and she said yes, so the mechanical room now became my AER. The hard part was done, or so I thought.
I will be having 2 aquariums in the main part of the house. One will be in our family room and the other will be in our game room. What is a game room you ask? We wanted a room to have a pool table, shuffle board table, Helen's Mom's upright piano and a table to play cards, etc. So the family room will have the 250 gallon aquarium and the game room will have the 130 gallon aquarium.
Ok layout of the AER.
So looking at the AER layout. I wanted the following:
Sump
Coral frag tank
Coral QT
Fish QT
Sink
SW mixing and holding tank
RO/DI holding tank
For the sump, initially I was going to have a large tub sitting on the floor. The house is one level and we have concrete floors. I was going to run the hoses from the aquariums under the floor and then back up and into the tub. I wanted to make the aquarium as quiet as possible and one way to do this was to use what's called a bean style overflow. A bean overflow uses 3 drain lines. During normal operation; drain 1 becomes a siphon drain, drain 2 typically has a trickle of water flowing through it and drain 3 is an emergency drain. During the startup phase and after a power fail, all 3 drains will have water flowing through them. Then as the return flow and drain flow equalize, the system works as described above. As I started doing more research on having the sump/tub sitting on the floor, I became concerned that any water trapped under the floor in the drain hoses would need to be drained otherwise the water in them would go rancid. So having a sump/tub on the floor was out. So, I talked with my builder and explained the above issue and I asked him could I have a pit (sump) in the floor. The drain lines would slope from the tanks to the pit, so no trapped water. When I proposed this idea to him, he looked at me and said “cool let’s make it happen". The builder had another good idea which was to lower the floor level in the AER to help if I ever get water on the floor, it wouldn't flow into the house and to add a floor drain. Ok the builder was onboard with the idea. Now we needed to figure out how big and deep to make the pit. The pit once built would be made out of poured concrete.
When the AER was originally going to be my mechanical room, the designer made some dead space in the room next to the mechanical to route the HVAC return lines. When we moved the HVAC units we still had the 2 dead spaces. The spaces are 24"x24" each going from the floor to the ceiling. The ceiling in the AER is 11' tall. There is a local place that sells plastic water storage tanks. They have a 105 gallon tank that is 23" round by 63" tall. 2 of these would fit and work perfectly in those dead spaces. One would hold my RO/DI water and the other my SW for my automatic water change unit.
Sump Pit/Hoses: Design and Install
With the builder and Helen onboard with the Sump Pit. It was time to design it, figure out hose lengths, order hoses, install hoses and last but not least pour the concrete. All of this had to happen quickly, the builder was only 2 weeks or less from pouring the concrete floor.
When trying to figure out where the big aquarium was to go, we kept moving around in our family room. With the placement, we just weren't finding a good place to put it. Then one late night while staring at the plans, I thought what if we put it where the fireplace was to be placed. We talked with the designer, and the placement of the aquarium would interfere with the flow of walking through the family room. Ok, I haven't said what the size of the aquarium will be. Well to fit in the space where the fireplace would be the tank could be 70" long. As for the width, I wanted a 36" wide tank. The depth would be 24". It was the width of 36" that was the issue. No problem, since at the time the house was just lines on a page, the designer made the family room bigger by a few feet. Problem solved.
As for placement of the big aquarium in relation to the AER, that was another issue, the distance was 45' yes, 45' from the AER. I forgot to mention this before, but the AER is 8'x10'. The horizontal distance would add to the head pressure that I would need to overcome with the return pumps. The smaller aquarium in the game room is 25' away.
We spoke with the plumbers and we decided to go with a 1/8 drop vs a 1/4 drop for the plumbing run for the drain lines. Drain 1 when used in a bean style overflow, becomes a siphon so the water flow in that line would not be an issue. For the water in the other 2 lines, with that slope, the lines would still drain, maybe a little slower, but they would still drain. So for the drain lines we would need a 5 5/8" drop over the 45 feet (45’x0.125”. There was also the fact that we needed to go straight down through the future concrete floor which would be 4" plus we dropped the floor 1" under the tank and installed a waste drain into the main house sewer drains. So another 5", which would be 10 5/8". We decided to have the aquarium drain lines come in at 12" below floor height to be safe. We would also have the drain lines coming from the game room aquarium at the same level into the sump pit, which would give them some additional slope. I wanted to have somewhere between 150 to 200 gallons of water in sump while the system was running. So doing some math we decided to make the inside of the sump pit 4' deep x 4' long x 30" wide (Final size was 4’x4’x32”). With around 24" of water in the pit I would have around 150. If I am able to raise it up some I could easily get 200 gallons. When I finish the inside of the sump pit, I am going to put spray foam into the holes going through the concrete. The hard PVC that we used was 3" and 2" so there is a gap. I will then use a fish safe liquid rubberized membrane to cover the concrete.
When the sump pit was being built, we had the concrete guys put in 3" (FR Aquarium) and 2" (GR Aquarium) PVC pipes at the 12" down mark into the form so that when they pulled the wooden form off, we wouldn't need to bore out 3" and 2" holes. We also took advantage of the other concrete walls that were going to be poured later to support the walls around the AER. In the end it all worked out well.
This was taken right after the concrete was poured. The weight of the concrete did cause the wood to bow slightly.
Doing some searching online I decided to use a high flex PVC hose for my drains and returns. So the drains for the family room aquarium would be 2" hoses the returns are 1.5" hoses. For the game room aquarium, the drains and returns would be 1.5" hoses. I found on eBay a place in California that had both size hoses and the lengths I needed. Shipping was included and hoses worked out to be less than $2/linear foot ($1.70). I wanted to use the high flex PVC to minimize or eliminate any hard 90 degree elbows, which would also add to the head pressure.
Now it was time to lay the hoses which was done right before we poured the concrete floor. The builder wanted to have the flex PVC installed into hard PVC to minimize damage as the gravel was placed under and over it prior to pouring the concrete floor. I agreed and this added time to get the hose installed, but it was worth it. Here are some shots of the install of the hose.
Hoses for Family Room Aquarium.
Looking from FR Aquarium location to Sump Pit.
Looking from FR Aquarium location to Sump Pit.
Looking down into Sump Pit.
Looking from Sump Pit to FR Aquarium Location. Plumber is working on Game Room Hoses.
Hoses higher up are the return lines, the drain lines are below them.
Sump Pit to GR Aquarium location.
Concrete workers filling in soil before gravel.
In this picture you can also see what will become the under the tank drain (center front middle) which ties into the house drain lines, and the vent line for the under the tank drain on the right.
Once the prep work was finished the concrete floors for the house was poured.
You can see the step down into what will become the AER.
Enough for one post lol. I will continue on with additional posts... Questions? I sure you do. Please ask away, I'll do my best to answer them.
Here’s a quick overview of the aquariums, but before I get too far into the aquariums, I want to go back to the beginning and explain how this whole journey started……
My current setup:
250 gallon aquarium in family room
130 gallon aquarium in game room
Both of these tanks are plumbed together with one infloor concrete sump in the fish equipment room (more on this later)
Both tanks have been wet since October 2018. Things have not gone as expected (more on this also as I document this build).
Other tanks:
2 – 40 gallon breeder aquariums. These are being used as support tanks for my 250 and 130 gallon aquariums. These tanks are stacked in an Edsal metal storage rack.
60 gallon cube tank in fish equipment room. This tank is separate from the main setup and infloor sump. It has its own sump and support equipment.
Some history:
In December 2014 my wife Helen, our 2 beagles Kira and Dax, our cat Odo and I packed up and moved from NJ to Arizona. I was done with cold weather and I've always liked the Western US. I guess living in Colorado for 15+ years will do that to you. If it wasn't for the cold, I would have moved back to Colorado in a heartbeat. I definitely I made the right choice in moving to AZ. It does get hot, very hot here in the summer. For me, I like the heat. Anything now below 70 degrees is cold. LOL.
I like FW tanks and I've seen some really beautiful tanks, but about 8-9 years ago I started a SW tank. That was all that I needed; I was bitten by the SW bug. I have an EE degree and put it to use building DIY LED light systems for FW tanks. Having built FW LED lights for years, my friend Kevin who has had SW tanks for many years asked me to build him a SW LED light. The light worked great and I decided it was time for me to build one for myself and start my own SW tank. It worked great and I was very happy with the results.
Once we moved to AZ, Helen and I looked at a number of houses, but just couldn't find the right one. So we decided to look for property instead. This would allow us to design and build our own house. We are not new to building houses. This house is our 4th that we have built, and we also did an addition and garage conversion on our last house in NJ.
I feel that it is important to this aquarium build journal to document the house build that pertains to my aquariums since the two are integrated. Since we were building, I was able to integrate the future aquariums and equipment placement into the house design. You'll see as I continue this journal. Well let's get started.
The House
Here is a layout of the house. Most people downsize when they build, well technically we did downsize. Our last house was 3600 sq ft and the basement which was unfinished was another 1400 sq ft. So the house total was 5,000 sq ft. Our new place is 4829 sq ft.
View of lot prior to construction
View of when we were pouring/pumping concrete. If you zoom in to the left of the construction workers you can see two sets of black pipes with white caps on them. That's where my two tanks will eventually be.
The Aquarium Equipment Room (AER).
When we were designing the house, I was trying to position a tank near an outer wall so that I could add a room behind it. It seemed like no matter what we tried it just wasn't working. So I figured that my sump was going to be under my tanks and that would be it. In our design there was an 8x10 mechanical room that would have 2 of my HVAC units and hot water units. As time went on, the placement of the HVAC units moved to other locations. That got me thinking that maybe a remote aquarium equipment room (AER) might happen. I worked with the builder, showed him some of my crazy ideas. I then needed to get approval from the boss (Helen) and she said yes, so the mechanical room now became my AER. The hard part was done, or so I thought.
I will be having 2 aquariums in the main part of the house. One will be in our family room and the other will be in our game room. What is a game room you ask? We wanted a room to have a pool table, shuffle board table, Helen's Mom's upright piano and a table to play cards, etc. So the family room will have the 250 gallon aquarium and the game room will have the 130 gallon aquarium.
Ok layout of the AER.
So looking at the AER layout. I wanted the following:
Sump
Coral frag tank
Coral QT
Fish QT
Sink
SW mixing and holding tank
RO/DI holding tank
For the sump, initially I was going to have a large tub sitting on the floor. The house is one level and we have concrete floors. I was going to run the hoses from the aquariums under the floor and then back up and into the tub. I wanted to make the aquarium as quiet as possible and one way to do this was to use what's called a bean style overflow. A bean overflow uses 3 drain lines. During normal operation; drain 1 becomes a siphon drain, drain 2 typically has a trickle of water flowing through it and drain 3 is an emergency drain. During the startup phase and after a power fail, all 3 drains will have water flowing through them. Then as the return flow and drain flow equalize, the system works as described above. As I started doing more research on having the sump/tub sitting on the floor, I became concerned that any water trapped under the floor in the drain hoses would need to be drained otherwise the water in them would go rancid. So having a sump/tub on the floor was out. So, I talked with my builder and explained the above issue and I asked him could I have a pit (sump) in the floor. The drain lines would slope from the tanks to the pit, so no trapped water. When I proposed this idea to him, he looked at me and said “cool let’s make it happen". The builder had another good idea which was to lower the floor level in the AER to help if I ever get water on the floor, it wouldn't flow into the house and to add a floor drain. Ok the builder was onboard with the idea. Now we needed to figure out how big and deep to make the pit. The pit once built would be made out of poured concrete.
When the AER was originally going to be my mechanical room, the designer made some dead space in the room next to the mechanical to route the HVAC return lines. When we moved the HVAC units we still had the 2 dead spaces. The spaces are 24"x24" each going from the floor to the ceiling. The ceiling in the AER is 11' tall. There is a local place that sells plastic water storage tanks. They have a 105 gallon tank that is 23" round by 63" tall. 2 of these would fit and work perfectly in those dead spaces. One would hold my RO/DI water and the other my SW for my automatic water change unit.
Sump Pit/Hoses: Design and Install
With the builder and Helen onboard with the Sump Pit. It was time to design it, figure out hose lengths, order hoses, install hoses and last but not least pour the concrete. All of this had to happen quickly, the builder was only 2 weeks or less from pouring the concrete floor.
When trying to figure out where the big aquarium was to go, we kept moving around in our family room. With the placement, we just weren't finding a good place to put it. Then one late night while staring at the plans, I thought what if we put it where the fireplace was to be placed. We talked with the designer, and the placement of the aquarium would interfere with the flow of walking through the family room. Ok, I haven't said what the size of the aquarium will be. Well to fit in the space where the fireplace would be the tank could be 70" long. As for the width, I wanted a 36" wide tank. The depth would be 24". It was the width of 36" that was the issue. No problem, since at the time the house was just lines on a page, the designer made the family room bigger by a few feet. Problem solved.
As for placement of the big aquarium in relation to the AER, that was another issue, the distance was 45' yes, 45' from the AER. I forgot to mention this before, but the AER is 8'x10'. The horizontal distance would add to the head pressure that I would need to overcome with the return pumps. The smaller aquarium in the game room is 25' away.
We spoke with the plumbers and we decided to go with a 1/8 drop vs a 1/4 drop for the plumbing run for the drain lines. Drain 1 when used in a bean style overflow, becomes a siphon so the water flow in that line would not be an issue. For the water in the other 2 lines, with that slope, the lines would still drain, maybe a little slower, but they would still drain. So for the drain lines we would need a 5 5/8" drop over the 45 feet (45’x0.125”. There was also the fact that we needed to go straight down through the future concrete floor which would be 4" plus we dropped the floor 1" under the tank and installed a waste drain into the main house sewer drains. So another 5", which would be 10 5/8". We decided to have the aquarium drain lines come in at 12" below floor height to be safe. We would also have the drain lines coming from the game room aquarium at the same level into the sump pit, which would give them some additional slope. I wanted to have somewhere between 150 to 200 gallons of water in sump while the system was running. So doing some math we decided to make the inside of the sump pit 4' deep x 4' long x 30" wide (Final size was 4’x4’x32”). With around 24" of water in the pit I would have around 150. If I am able to raise it up some I could easily get 200 gallons. When I finish the inside of the sump pit, I am going to put spray foam into the holes going through the concrete. The hard PVC that we used was 3" and 2" so there is a gap. I will then use a fish safe liquid rubberized membrane to cover the concrete.
When the sump pit was being built, we had the concrete guys put in 3" (FR Aquarium) and 2" (GR Aquarium) PVC pipes at the 12" down mark into the form so that when they pulled the wooden form off, we wouldn't need to bore out 3" and 2" holes. We also took advantage of the other concrete walls that were going to be poured later to support the walls around the AER. In the end it all worked out well.
This was taken right after the concrete was poured. The weight of the concrete did cause the wood to bow slightly.
Doing some searching online I decided to use a high flex PVC hose for my drains and returns. So the drains for the family room aquarium would be 2" hoses the returns are 1.5" hoses. For the game room aquarium, the drains and returns would be 1.5" hoses. I found on eBay a place in California that had both size hoses and the lengths I needed. Shipping was included and hoses worked out to be less than $2/linear foot ($1.70). I wanted to use the high flex PVC to minimize or eliminate any hard 90 degree elbows, which would also add to the head pressure.
Now it was time to lay the hoses which was done right before we poured the concrete floor. The builder wanted to have the flex PVC installed into hard PVC to minimize damage as the gravel was placed under and over it prior to pouring the concrete floor. I agreed and this added time to get the hose installed, but it was worth it. Here are some shots of the install of the hose.
Hoses for Family Room Aquarium.
Looking from FR Aquarium location to Sump Pit.
Looking from FR Aquarium location to Sump Pit.
Looking down into Sump Pit.
Looking from Sump Pit to FR Aquarium Location. Plumber is working on Game Room Hoses.
Hoses higher up are the return lines, the drain lines are below them.
Sump Pit to GR Aquarium location.
Concrete workers filling in soil before gravel.
In this picture you can also see what will become the under the tank drain (center front middle) which ties into the house drain lines, and the vent line for the under the tank drain on the right.
Once the prep work was finished the concrete floors for the house was poured.
You can see the step down into what will become the AER.
Enough for one post lol. I will continue on with additional posts... Questions? I sure you do. Please ask away, I'll do my best to answer them.