Fishroom Reality Check

[User]

Congrats on the new house.

Thanks. It’s our second ‘forever home’ in 4 years, lol

 

[User]

Ok guys- not much to report, other than I got my first real hood look at the new fishroom area last night

This will be the fishroom area itself 13x15 feet) and will house my sump system, water production (thinking 2 x 275g square thingies) sink, a lowboy50 frag tank and a ‘buffet station’- phyto, pods, worms


this doorway will be closed off
With a curtain, and leads to the QT and lab area. 7x13 feetJust the carpeted room right there. The room beyond will be sealed off, and a new door from the far right side added, and will become our main storage are. That one is 13x15.

That 7 foot span let’s me get a bench in there with space for TTM tanks and a 20l observation tank. And in the opposite side of the room- 13 feet away, will be a 20long coral qt and grow out, and a nice 4’ section where I can set up a testing bench and microscope lab.

wall mounted storage, additional stuff here too.

Cool facts: room is right next to the equipment room, which means hot, cold water access and drains. No more booster pump shooting waste water up to a drain. It also means I can do the heat exchanger system for my tank heat, and it’ll be super efficient since it’ll only have to run 6-7 feet.

I’m not going to hard plumb my water system into the sump, like I have now, because doorways interfere with the placement. I’m going to do flexible tubing and just move it to where it’s needed. Simplifies plumbing and I have to do that now anyway for observation and QT tanks.

bonus- if I put the sump on the back wall, it’s in a position where I can plumb a completely new tank into it to share the sump. Thinking I’ll do a shallow mangrove quiet tank, low flow, some macro and quiet animals. Alpheus pistol shrimp and goby. I loved that pair in my big tank but it was too loud for them. I’ll be pushing my return pump to the max, but I may upgrade and use the one I have now for my mixing station. That’ll be a year out at this point regardless

 

[Victoria M]

Just finish it and make it pretty!

 

[User]

Just finish it and make it pretty!

Lol, we still need to move in. 2 trips down, 38 to go.
We have overlap so not going crazy, but it’s a 2 hour round trip and a Toyota Highlander only carries so much. Grandparents are coming to help out with girls for some of next week, so I’m hoping to get 4 trips done per day. Not excited about all the driving time considering how little we’ve been out and about since March, but it’s a relatively quiet part of north Georgia so traffic is light.

 

[Victoria M]

Lol, we still need to move in. 2 trips down, 38 to go.
We have overlap so not going crazy, but it’s a 2 hour round trip and a Toyota Highlander only carries so much. Grandparents are coming to help out with girls for some of next week, so I’m hoping to get 4 trips done per day. Not excited about all the driving time considering how little we’ve been out and about since March, but it’s a relatively quiet part of north Georgia so traffic is light.

Friend, rent a uhaul. It was totally worth it for our last move. Time is precious. I would come help if I was near!

 

[User]

Friend, rent a uhaul. It was totally worth it for our last move. Time is precious. I would come help if I was near!

We are going to hire 2 guys and a truck for the big stuff, and a 15 foot uhaul for the smaller boxed stuff and yard furniture and pack it full. But we have a bunch of stuff that we are throwing in the car kinda packed that we are taking up there to start the process. We can’t list this place for a month so we have some overlap.
I was kidding about the 38 to go, that was an over exaggeration based on how tedious I think this next week will be

when you visit (note I said when) it’ll be for fun tank stuff and grilling and hanging out. Not moving my junk, lol.

 

[Victoria M]

LOL

I do hope to visit when this is all over!

 

[User]

Just counted 14 berghia nudibranches crawlingnin the rocks in my tank. I introduced 8 x 1/2” adults 3-4? Months ago? And now I have at least 7 that are 1.25-1.5” (fully grown) plus 7 around 1/2-3/4”.

I hope I don’t upset them too much with the move...

 

[Poseidon's snail]

Hello!
for some unknown reason reef2reef wasn't giving me updates
but I'm back!
a snail

 

[Victoria M]

Just counted 14 berghia nudibranches crawlingnin the rocks in my tank. I introduced 8 x 1/2” adults 3-4? Months ago? And now I have at least 7 that are 1.25-1.5” (fully grown) plus 7 around 1/2-3/4”.

I hope I don’t upset them too much with the move...

That is wonderful. How exciting! Moving a tank is really hard on live stock, though. As I said before plan plan plan!

 

[User]

I think the anemone might be responding to the lack of husbandry over the past 2 weeks...

And then there were 3

 

[fishlover1478]

i love this thread lol

 

[User]

i love this thread lol

Thanks I appreciate that.

I hit a snag with the new house and the tank move though. I need a couple days to figure it out but this might be my last couple weeks posting.

ive been keeping quiet because I’m kinda upset over the whole thing. But I won’t know until Tuesday if I’ll be continuing

 

[User]

Tank move next week if timing works out, and I had a few minutes this evening, so I made a start on clearing out the future fishroom

really badly constructed tote rack- 3 screws were all that were stopping this thing from racking all the way to the ground

That’s right we’re the sump is going to be.
And the little room next door is going to be the QT area and testing lab.

Renting a 20 foot truck for 2 days to get the rest of the stuff moved- all by myself. Not looking forward to that.

then next week- empty tanks, water production moved and started, then quick cycle the tanks with biospira and seeded filters and rocks. Wednesday- make new stand and drill holes in floor for plumbing. Then Thursday- livestock and rock move. Friday is remove sand from otherwise empty tank, and start washing it, then Saturday plus Sunday will be tank moving and fishroom break down.

I figure I can keep the livestock going in the assortment of 40b, 2 x 20longs and the 6 10g that I have available for around 7-10 days, which will give me time to wash sand, fill with rodi and mix
Salt, and get it stable before moving the rock and livestock over.

 

[Victoria M]

Okay, so looks like moving forward for now!

 

[User]

Okay, so looks like moving forward for now!

Still in flux, but I just had to do something. I hate sitting doing nothing when we are paying two mortgages and stuff needs doing

 

[User]

Got to the house today to get more staging and packing done, and the tank is doing all sorts of crazy gurgles and surges . Tried a few things to no avail, and eventually decided to pull the terminal 3 feet of the siphon line off and inspect the valve...

Only to find a complete blockage due to a dead mollie and a half dozen snails... stuck in the valve

 

[User]

Ok, so here is an update on ‘the situation’

we had a structural guy come in to give an assessment of tearing out a 18 foot wall (check for load bearing) which divides our living room and kitchen, and putting in a beam to create a huge open plan. We put an 8’ 400g peninsula where half the wall is and have the tank of our dreams. Of course- we would also need to add posts in the basement to take the additional weight, but the tank would already be sitting on an lvl beam and a
Bunch of joists, so that part wasn’t critical.

he said the work could be done the way we envisioned when we saw the house, and quoted around 7-10k for the wall gone, any utilities rerouted, beam, etc. considering we paid 5 for the same thing in our old house but with an 8 foot wide wall, we thought that was reasonable

we got a call 2 days later saying he’s sending someone else out to verify something that came up in a due diligence check of the plans. So, duse came, checked out what he needed, and went back to the office. Didn’t really tell
Us anything. Bear in mind- covid- so this all took place while my wife and two girls went to grandparents for a couple days, and I took precautions.

next day- first guy calls us and gives us the news that because of a particular joist construction and concrete batch that was used in this house when built- there was no way we would be able to put a 400g on that beam unless we replaced it with a double laminated plywood beam. That is- rip out the old beam HOLDING IO THE REST OF THE HOUSE and replace it with a new beefier beam. The old one has a manufacturing defect that, while it remains in code and will do its job with a 2x safety margin, it will not be safe to put 4500 lbs on it.

price for that work is 58k. 28k JUST FOR THE BEAM.

Yeah.

so now our dream peninsula tank and open plan living area is looking like it’s going to be 70-ish K

so, yeah, we don’t know what to do regarding the upgrade.

I do know I need to move my tank to the new house, and to do that I need to get my rodi going and my fishroom walled up, so guess what im doing tomorrow?

installing a utility sink and running plumbing and getting the rodi making the first batch.

Neat thing is our laundry room had a
Wall mounted mustee brand 26” sink in there. I wanted one of those before but it’s a $165 sink. I bought the 18” wide floor model for $72 instead. You know what DOESNT fit in an 18” sink? 10g tanks. It was a pain in the butt cleaning my QT tanks every 3 days because of this.
They DO fit in a 26” sink though

so I ripped the sink out (and put our second fridge in it’s place- laundry is off the kitchen so not that weird) and I’m going to hang it on my fishroom wall.

So- heading to the old house to grab a few things, then off to the Depot for plumbing supplies and concrete wall anchors.

 

[User]

Got the wrong sized sleeve anchors for the sink bracket. Uugghh.

So I can’t hang the sink, but I am going to run the plumbing and get things flowing so I can make some saltwater.

I have other commitments this week that involve my elderly parents in law, so another Home Depot visit is out of the question until next week. That’s fine. Don’t need the sink right now- just the faucet, lol

 

[User]

First batch of water tomorrow at the new place. This 30 minute install took 3 hours, because we don’t have an in house water shut off (that I can find) and the outside shut off is full of mud. So I had to get a little creative. No leaks, no worries.

22 PPM TDS in, and 51psi of pressure. Not bad! That’ll let me use the 2:1 restrictor, which I feel better about.