Hello All,
I have been planning a pretty big build out for the past year and a half. Things are starting to get moving and I figured it was a perfect time to start a thread here to track the progress.
I currently have a RedSea Reefer 250, which has been a great little tank, but I am ready for more room. In addition I also have a Waterbox 35.1 acting as a frag tank. Here are some pictures of my current tanks:
Frag Tank:
Reefer Display:
I have never been able to do just do the bare minimum when it comes to my hobbies so rather than just get a new display with a sump under and call it a day I have put together a two step plan to build out a new Display and a Fish room which will be in an unused room in my basement.
The display will consist of a 180 Gallon tank in our living room on the main level. This will be a standard 72x24x24. This will be added on a few months after the fish room is done. I am planning on going with a Planet Aquariums Perimeter braced tank and one of their stands.
The fish room will be located in our basement in an unused room. The room is 12'9" x 5'8" with 7'8" walls. I designed the room with SketchUp to get an outline of what I wanted.
The room will have a 120 Gallon Frag Tank (72x24x16) as well as room on the shelf for coral QT and a system for breeding clownfish (I have 4 pairs of clowns in different systems currently). This will also have a small desk for me to work on different projects or mess with equipment. Also included a sink for all the fish needs.
For the stands in the fish room I decided to go with T-Slot aluminum. I researched several vendors and finally settled on Framing Tech based on their price and their customer support. I was originally going to just do the tank stand in T-Slot, but after working with them on designing the stand and sending them the idea for the room they came up with a design to incorporate the shelf as well. Since I was already shipping the stand it worked out to do it this way and made the shelf similar in price to just getting a shelf from a big box store.
Putting the T-Slot together wasn't the most fun process, it is a little fiddly going back and forth making sure all the connections are in the correct place. Took me about an hour and a half to get the stand together and another hour and a half to get the shelf all together. I did both all by myself, but if I had to do it again I would ask my wife for help lol.
Getting the fish room ready has been slow moving up until the past weekend. I have had to fit work in on it when I can as I have two young kids and it is noisy work! The room was used as a tiny office by the prior owners. I removed all the carpet and drywall from the room to give me a clean slate to work with.
For the walls in the fish room I am using a PVC wall and ceiling panels from a company Trusscore Wall Panels
I wanted to make sure I never had any problems with moisture in the room so this was a no brainer. They are an interlocking panel that will be highly water resistant once installed.
The panels I ordered for the walls and ceiling come in 10', 12', 14', 16' and 20'. To minimize waste I went with 12' for the ceiling (cutting panels in half) and 16' for the walls (cutting panels in half). Since I drive a sedan and my wife only has a small SUV I had to rent a 20' truck to go and pickup all my materials. This was quite an expensive trip. The panels are quite expensive compared to other materials coming in at about 68$ for a 16" x 16' panel. This also does not account for the additional trim that is required.
This past weekend my good friend Doug came over and helped me get a ton of work done on the room. He is a master of design when it comes to fish rooms, Remy from Reef Builders did a video on Doug's fish setup when he was in town for INDMAS's frag swap. Video: Doug's Fish Room
Since the panels I am using are designed to be mounted to 16" on center studs we had to re-frame most of the room since the room was framed with 24" on center studs (Or 21", 17" 19" really whatever the previous owner felt like doing). We also added a boat load of additional outlets (Two additional 20 amp circuits run into room, each duplex box has an outlet on each circuit). Low voltage boxes were added to allow for items like RO tubing (Top off and AWC), ethernet for desk and Apex, and hdmi for the desk to connect computer to TV mounted above. The room before had two 6" can lights with the full cans mounted in the room. Opted to pull these out and add in 4 4" LED can lights that mount in a smaller space.
The door to this room was also replaced with a standard steel external door to further help keep moister inside the room and out of the rest of the basement.
We also got all panels cut to size so I can get started installing them once I have the last of the wiring done and cables/RO run. I also have to install the j channel and corner cove trim.
Last night I got the Exhaust fan mounted into the adjacent utility room which will pull air from the fish room and blow it out the dryer vent to outside. This has a controller that you can set a specific speed it will always run at, and it will ramp up the fan if the room goes above a configured humidity level. I still need to connect this to a new Y fitting into the dryer exhaust and run the intake inside the fish room, but that will be once I have hung the ceiling panels up to that point.
Also picked up this handy lock for the door from Home Depot for 18$. I would not trust this based on build quality on an actual external door, but for a fish room where I just want to keep the kids out it works great!
Tonight I plan on getting the rest of the wiring done, and run the last of the cabling so I can start to get panels hung.
Also got a text from my LFS that the frag tank is going to be delivered tomorrow! I am very excited that all the pieces of this are starting to fall into line.
If you made it this far thank you for coming along on the journey! I will provide updates as I have them.
I have been planning a pretty big build out for the past year and a half. Things are starting to get moving and I figured it was a perfect time to start a thread here to track the progress.
I currently have a RedSea Reefer 250, which has been a great little tank, but I am ready for more room. In addition I also have a Waterbox 35.1 acting as a frag tank. Here are some pictures of my current tanks:
Frag Tank:
Reefer Display:
I have never been able to do just do the bare minimum when it comes to my hobbies so rather than just get a new display with a sump under and call it a day I have put together a two step plan to build out a new Display and a Fish room which will be in an unused room in my basement.
The display will consist of a 180 Gallon tank in our living room on the main level. This will be a standard 72x24x24. This will be added on a few months after the fish room is done. I am planning on going with a Planet Aquariums Perimeter braced tank and one of their stands.
The fish room will be located in our basement in an unused room. The room is 12'9" x 5'8" with 7'8" walls. I designed the room with SketchUp to get an outline of what I wanted.
The room will have a 120 Gallon Frag Tank (72x24x16) as well as room on the shelf for coral QT and a system for breeding clownfish (I have 4 pairs of clowns in different systems currently). This will also have a small desk for me to work on different projects or mess with equipment. Also included a sink for all the fish needs.
For the stands in the fish room I decided to go with T-Slot aluminum. I researched several vendors and finally settled on Framing Tech based on their price and their customer support. I was originally going to just do the tank stand in T-Slot, but after working with them on designing the stand and sending them the idea for the room they came up with a design to incorporate the shelf as well. Since I was already shipping the stand it worked out to do it this way and made the shelf similar in price to just getting a shelf from a big box store.
Putting the T-Slot together wasn't the most fun process, it is a little fiddly going back and forth making sure all the connections are in the correct place. Took me about an hour and a half to get the stand together and another hour and a half to get the shelf all together. I did both all by myself, but if I had to do it again I would ask my wife for help lol.
Getting the fish room ready has been slow moving up until the past weekend. I have had to fit work in on it when I can as I have two young kids and it is noisy work! The room was used as a tiny office by the prior owners. I removed all the carpet and drywall from the room to give me a clean slate to work with.
For the walls in the fish room I am using a PVC wall and ceiling panels from a company Trusscore Wall Panels
I wanted to make sure I never had any problems with moisture in the room so this was a no brainer. They are an interlocking panel that will be highly water resistant once installed.
The panels I ordered for the walls and ceiling come in 10', 12', 14', 16' and 20'. To minimize waste I went with 12' for the ceiling (cutting panels in half) and 16' for the walls (cutting panels in half). Since I drive a sedan and my wife only has a small SUV I had to rent a 20' truck to go and pickup all my materials. This was quite an expensive trip. The panels are quite expensive compared to other materials coming in at about 68$ for a 16" x 16' panel. This also does not account for the additional trim that is required.
This past weekend my good friend Doug came over and helped me get a ton of work done on the room. He is a master of design when it comes to fish rooms, Remy from Reef Builders did a video on Doug's fish setup when he was in town for INDMAS's frag swap. Video: Doug's Fish Room
Since the panels I am using are designed to be mounted to 16" on center studs we had to re-frame most of the room since the room was framed with 24" on center studs (Or 21", 17" 19" really whatever the previous owner felt like doing). We also added a boat load of additional outlets (Two additional 20 amp circuits run into room, each duplex box has an outlet on each circuit). Low voltage boxes were added to allow for items like RO tubing (Top off and AWC), ethernet for desk and Apex, and hdmi for the desk to connect computer to TV mounted above. The room before had two 6" can lights with the full cans mounted in the room. Opted to pull these out and add in 4 4" LED can lights that mount in a smaller space.
The door to this room was also replaced with a standard steel external door to further help keep moister inside the room and out of the rest of the basement.
We also got all panels cut to size so I can get started installing them once I have the last of the wiring done and cables/RO run. I also have to install the j channel and corner cove trim.
Last night I got the Exhaust fan mounted into the adjacent utility room which will pull air from the fish room and blow it out the dryer vent to outside. This has a controller that you can set a specific speed it will always run at, and it will ramp up the fan if the room goes above a configured humidity level. I still need to connect this to a new Y fitting into the dryer exhaust and run the intake inside the fish room, but that will be once I have hung the ceiling panels up to that point.
Also picked up this handy lock for the door from Home Depot for 18$. I would not trust this based on build quality on an actual external door, but for a fish room where I just want to keep the kids out it works great!
Tonight I plan on getting the rest of the wiring done, and run the last of the cabling so I can start to get panels hung.
Also got a text from my LFS that the frag tank is going to be delivered tomorrow! I am very excited that all the pieces of this are starting to fall into line.
If you made it this far thank you for coming along on the journey! I will provide updates as I have them.
