Refinishing Hardwood Floors how will it effect tank?

[McPuff]

Alright so here is the plan for the new improved, expanded, much more expensive refinishing of my hardwood floors. After all the comments here and doing a lot of research including a 1/2 hour discussion with my local flooring guy. What a fantastic individual to give me so much of his time and knowledge.

I am going to use waterbased BONA Traffic HD(3 coats), over BONA DriFast stain(color TBD).
This is all "green" low VOC stuff and even though it should not effect the aquarium, I am going to tent the tank and use a computer fan to push outside air via a 4" duct from outside the house into the tent. I needed to tent the tank anyway because of sanding dust so building a duct/plenum is not that much more work.

It turned into a lot bigger job because recoating with poly would have required sanding the main field but the edges could have just been hit lightly and it would not have been necessary to get everything 100% down to bare wood. Now quarter round has to be removed and old finish needs to go completely, including things like under the toe kicks of the cabinets and all corners will need to be hand scraped.

The Finish has a 2-3 hour dry time so after it is tack free(about 30 min) I can turn on the whole house fan to remove anything in the air.

Assuming good weather and my back holding up I plan on doing this project starting late next week. I will update this thread with the results.

Great information! If my floors need to be refinished to complete the repair I will almost certainly follow the same procedure. Probably won't need to tent the aquarium as I could simply block the door to the basement and turn off the furnace fan for the necessary duration. This makes me feel quite a bit better about the possible process.

 

[inetjnky]

I just went through this process myself in Oct ... I have new 3/4” character grade white oak installed over wood subfloor. Hardwood floor was cut, some pieces glued, but most nailed to the subfloor. Yes I had hardwood dust From the installation. I have a biocube 29 running a mj1200 for the return with the plastic prefilter. It got clogged up once with wood dust that I cleaned out but there was no harm to my fish or coral. I keep mostly sps with a few Lps. I only had to clean it out once. I suspect because of the cutting being done in the living room with the tank only being 3 feet away. Once the install was complete my installer used a dustless sander where it sucked the dust out through a pipe into a 50g drum outside. Not once did I cover my tank. Once the sanding was done the original plan was to stain and seal with poly (that’s all my installer used), but as he was installing my floor I changed my mind and wanted to stay with a natural color with no ambering. I turned on my Google Foo and found Bona Traffic HD was what I really wanted to install with. I presented to my installer and he kept trying to convince me Poly was better. I told him I was the customer and I wanted the Bona. He did 1 coat of Bona Natural, then Abraded the floor after it was dry, then applied one coat of Bona Traffic HD, waited till dry, then abraded again, and then applied the final coat of Bona Traffic HD. My floors came out fantastic! I never covered my tank and never opened windows until after the last coat was complete and dry. You need fresh air exchange to cure the floor. I waited two weeks before allowing any traffic to walk on (without shoes) just to allow the floor to fully cure. I had that luxury. I will say that while my floor came out awesome my dogs nails do cause slight scratches but I keep his nails trimmed every two weeks and we don’t walk on the floors in our shoes. Felt pads under all furniture and office chairs have rubber rollerblade style wheels. Because the floor is natural it benefits from hiding small scratches and blemishes. I’d do it again in a heart beat. I talked to my installer about drilling holes to run plumbing through the floor for my upcoming build and he said it wouldn’t be a problem later down the line to pull those boards out and replace with new ones to remove the holes if I ever want to sell the house although now I’m considering running the plumbing in and down through the wall. Use the Bona Traffic HD and don’t worry about your tank. It’ll be just fine.

 

[inetjnky]

 

[Ocelaris]

Looks great, I really like the natural finish. Are those wider than normal planks? My parents wre the opposite, their installer wanted a water based and they forced their installer to do poly, just looks too old fashioned with the yellowing and amber imo, but that's a personal choice. They have a medium dog and he scratches the floor some also. The reality is that no matter what finish you have just like diamonds, you can't scratch them, but if you hit it with a hammer it will shatter. We did a epoxy finish in the basement and garage with a urethane top coat (like bona traffic HD) and and it's nearly indestructible. But I've scratched it with a floor jack accidentally once or twice. Glad you got what you wanted, that's the key, because you have to live with it for a long time.

 

[inetjnky]

No I think they’re standard planks.. i think like 3 1/2” or 4”. The character grade produces longer boards then they typically make them which is nice. I originally wanted to go with a much wider plank but the humidity in my area is brutal in the summer time and between the outside humidity and 400g of water from an aquarium build I’m putting together we discussed and felt it be better to go with the skinnier planks to prevent them from cupping and what not. Funny thing was my installer argued with me about doing the water based finish and I stood my ground and told him if he wouldn’t do it I’d find someone who would. He ended up doing it and now he’s changed to only using water based finishes. He said my floor was his most favorite out of all he’s ever done. He agreed I was right after the job was over.

 

[Blackice615]

Looks great and thank you for the update along with photos

 

[Blackice615]

Seems like it wont be a problem refinishing the floor or replacing that part of the floor that sits under your tank also

 

[A-A-ron11]

I wanted to provide my own recent experience on the subject. We just had our 50 or so year old 3/4in oak floors sanded and refinished. I will try and track down the stain and topcoat that was used (looks like polyurethane but I can't say for sure). This came at a busy time at work for me, so moving the tank wasn't really an option. There were two vapor barriers between the room that was being worked on and the room the aquarium was in. My aquarium is controlled by an apex so I was able to watch the aquarium pH from my phone while we were out of the house. The second day of installation the pH of my tank plummeted. My pH probe is out of calibration but my aquarium usually reads from 8.0-8.3 during the day. The pH dropped to 7.8 and had no noticeable rise during the day when photosynthesis should have been occurring. I only run my skimmer at night (pulls outside air for pH stabilization) but not too surprisingly the pH would rise as soon as it would kick on. We were allowed in after 3 days and the fumes weren't bad at all. I looked closely and found no noticeable dust in the aquarium room on any furniture or the aquarium. Upon checking the aquarium, the water was cloudy and there was obviously a bacterial bloom going on. The was even some white bacterial mats growing on a few spots on the sand, and it appeared whatever got into my tank also caused algae to die back. The fish also had elevated ventilation rates and the skimmer collection cup smelled strongly like sulfur, so I think it was safe to say the tank was lacking oxygen.

It's been about a week and a half since the day we got back into the house. I've been running carbon and have done a 35% water change, and 2 20% water changes. I have mostly sps, and a few lps, and mushrooms. All the corals took a big hit with this one. While they're starting to turn around, all of them lost coloration and show reduced polyp extension. About half of my sps have browned significantly and some have tissue recession at their base. From returning to the house, I kept a close eye on my tank levels. I was able to keep my calcium and alkalinity really pretty stable considering (Calc 440; KH 8.3). It wasn't until after the second water change (3 days after being home) that I noticed the pH starting it's normal daily rise indicating photosynthesis was once again taking place. I did struggle to keep my nitrates above 0, perhaps from the slowly fading bacterial bloom that was still eating up all the available nutrients? Phosphate was elevated before this event and was sitting at 0.38ppm. Again, I'll look up what the kind of stain and topcoat that was used so others can be aware. Thanks for reading the long post.

 

[Blackice615]

Awesome thank you for sharing your experience. Greatly appreciated. Sound like your tank is back on track and timing will make the difference with color.

From experience, sometimes I've gained better color than before when this occurs. Good luck!

 

[LimestoneCowboy]

I wanted to provide my own recent experience on the subject. We just had our 50 or so year old 3/4in oak floors sanded and refinished. I will try and track down the stain and topcoat that was used (looks like polyurethane but I can't say for sure). This came at a busy time at work for me, so moving the tank wasn't really an option. There were two vapor barriers between the room that was being worked on and the room the aquarium was in. My aquarium is controlled by an apex so I was able to watch the aquarium pH from my phone while we were out of the house. The second day of installation the pH of my tank plummeted. My pH probe is out of calibration but my aquarium usually reads from 8.0-8.3 during the day. The pH dropped to 7.8 and had no noticeable rise during the day when photosynthesis should have been occurring. I only run my skimmer at night (pulls outside air for pH stabilization) but not too surprisingly the pH would rise as soon as it would kick on. We were allowed in after 3 days and the fumes weren't bad at all. I looked closely and found no noticeable dust in the aquarium room on any furniture or the aquarium. Upon checking the aquarium, the water was cloudy and there was obviously a bacterial bloom going on. The was even some white bacterial mats growing on a few spots on the sand, and it appeared whatever got into my tank also caused algae to die back. The fish also had elevated ventilation rates and the skimmer collection cup smelled strongly like sulfur, so I think it was safe to say the tank was lacking oxygen.

It's been about a week and a half since the day we got back into the house. I've been running carbon and have done a 35% water change, and 2 20% water changes. I have mostly sps, and a few lps, and mushrooms. All the corals took a big hit with this one. While they're starting to turn around, all of them lost coloration and show reduced polyp extension. About half of my sps have browned significantly and some have tissue recession at their base. From returning to the house, I kept a close eye on my tank levels. I was able to keep my calcium and alkalinity really pretty stable considering (Calc 440; KH 8.3). It wasn't until after the second water change (3 days after being home) that I noticed the pH starting it's normal daily rise indicating photosynthesis was once again taking place. I did struggle to keep my nitrates above 0, perhaps from the slowly fading bacterial bloom that was still eating up all the available nutrients? Phosphate was elevated before this event and was sitting at 0.38ppm. Again, I'll look up what the kind of stain and topcoat that was used so others can be aware. Thanks for reading the long post.

Going through the same thing right now after we refinished the day before Memorial Day Weekend. Lost some SPS color that first week after and noticed within hours a huge alk spike that my Alkatronic thankfully caught. Over the past 45 days though, I have partially or completely lost many plate corals, stylos, stlyocoenelias, chalices, leptoseris, seriatopora birds nests, turbinaria scroll corals and a few acros. Tanks are not even in the house, rather separated in the garage with a closed door. Many acros are doing great and growing well. I have broken down and bought an Air IQ VOC air filter for almost a grand to see what that does for the 30 day return window. Its interesting too, with the Alkatronic, if I leave the garage doors open all day, the alk usage pics up in earnest. Close the doors and within hours, it starts to rise (meaning corals are not happy and are not using it as much). I test every two hours so this curve has been at least a good test of how/what makes things more happy/angry. I will report back, but this is really frustrating.

 

[Larryr]

I faced this same situation 25 years ago. Our newly installed hardwood floor had to be refinished by the company that installed it. If the people weren't allowed to stay in the house I didn't think it would be good for the tank
I was able to tent the tank off in visquin and run a 6" flexible duct under the house to the tank from the outside. I mounted a blower on the outside and created a positive air pressure around the entire tank. The floors got done and the tank was fine.

 

[Blackice615]

Thank you guys for sharing. I was discussing with my wife last week contemplating moving the tank outside while we are out of the house. I have glass lids and a large canopy I can close off outside. Temperature remains consistent during this time of year outside, although it can drop at times.

Second crazy option was ultimately lifting the tank onto rollers and rolling the tank to the mudroom in our home which would be a tight fit but that's also just as risky with the tank still being in the house

 

[A-A-ron11]

Going through the same thing right now after we refinished the day before Memorial Day Weekend. Lost some SPS color that first week after and noticed within hours a huge alk spike that my Alkatronic thankfully caught. Over the past 45 days though, I have partially or completely lost many plate corals, stylos, stlyocoenelias, chalices, leptoseris, seriatopora birds nests, turbinaria scroll corals and a few acros. Tanks are not even in the house, rather separated in the garage with a closed door. Many acros are doing great and growing well. I have broken down and bought an Air IQ VOC air filter for almost a grand to see what that does for the 30 day return window. Its interesting too, with the Alkatronic, if I leave the garage doors open all day, the alk usage pics up in earnest. Close the doors and within hours, it starts to rise (meaning corals are not happy and are not using it as much). I test every two hours so this curve has been at least a good test of how/what makes things more happy/angry. I will report back, but this is really frustrating.

Thanks for adding your experience. Updating from my last post, I ended up losing most of my lps, a monti cap, and and 4 acropora frags. I ran a Triton water sample test and nothing jumped out as being out of normal. Carbon didn't seem to do a thing and tons of water changes ended up bringing things back to normal. As I said in my original post, I unfortunately only have the capacity to do a 30-35% water change at a time, which probably contributed to how long it took to get the whatever chemical was in my tank, out. Corals are back to growing and improving polyp extension and color. However I am having some cyano and what I believe are dinoflagellate issues now (no microscope confirmation on the dinoflagellates yet) . Nitrates are undetectable unless I dose, and phosphate is 0.02-0.03 (using Hanna low range - need to get the ULR). I attribute some of the algae outbreaks to the system being unstable due to the original issue after the hard woods were replaced and all the water changes. We'll see where things are at in another month or two.