Hi everyone,
Welcome to my build thread, where I'm chronicling my journey into my first reef tank.
Some background on me and where I'm coming from. I've always loved anything underwater. I kept simple freshwater and planted freshwater tanks for a number of years. I was in the military then which meant I moved every few years. This made keeping a tank much harder, but I still tried and enjoyed doing it. I always wanted a saltwater or reef tank, but didn't know where to start and was put off by the initial investment cost. I ended up taking a multi-year hiatus from the hobby altogether.
I've since left the military and settled down a bit. I'm at the point in my life where I can feasibly pull off a larger long-term tank and decided to try my hand at a reef tank. I'm building a new home and wanted to make a reef tank a part of the build plan. So this thread will chronicle my house along with my reef tank.
This journey started in January of 2019 when I decided to look into getting back into a tank. I stumbled upon the BRS 160 series and that started me off in the reef direction. Since then I've watched just about all of their videos, as well as those from a few other YouTubers. I also bought and read a few reefing books. I figured I would rather invest $100 in books before spending multiple thousands of dollars into a hobby I may not enjoy. After reading those books and nine-months later, I'm still excited about a reef tank.
As mentioned, I'm building a new home and want to incorporate a reef tank. I work from home and will have an office. The reef tank will be in my office. The house isn't scheduled to be finished until mid-January, but I could foresee that date getting pushed back even more. So I haven't purchased any equipment yet and likely won't for about another six months. So far, I've been focused on learning more about the hobby, what I want to accomplish, and how I can set myself up (from a house/fish room perspective) to increase my chances of success, oh, and also saving money because this stuff isn't cheap!
General Objective: Have a healthy and stable 100+ gallon tank to house as many different colors of as many different species of coral (mixed), peaceful fish, and other inverts as feasible.
Stocking Objectives:
Coral - mixed coral but beginning with softies and progressing to LPS and eventually some SPS
Fish - as many small, colorful, and peaceful fish as is responsible to stock
Inverts - function over form, but I want the lives of the CUC to be valued as I would that of a fish or coral
My office is situated directly over a mechanical room in my basement. This means my mechanical room is now also my fish room. This should allow me to keep my office largely free of equipment and noise.
I told my contractors I wanted a floor that would support 2,000 lbs of weight. Not knowing how big the tank it would be, I over-estimated on the weight. They beefed up the joists to ensure they could handle the weight. This should also allow me to do a larger build in the highly unlikely event I want to.
This is the fish section of my mechanical room. You can see where a utility sink will be plumbed on the left side of the room in that little corner. The RO/DI unit will be near there. I also have the outlets all GFCI and on their own dedicated 20 amp circuit. There should be about 8 total outlets mounted about halfway up on the wall. I will also have a CAT 6 ethernet port and a smurf tube that would allow me to drop cables down from my office directly into my mechanical room. The goal with the smurf tube was to keep the Apex in the mechanical room, but still controlling/monitoring everything on this system.
Flow for days! I had them install six 1.5" pipes that go from the wall down into the fish room. I don't know what my flow requirements will be but, these will surely meet the demands. I imagined 2-3 being for drain overflow (still undecided on Herbie vs Be An Animal, Herbie should be plenty good with these pipe sizes), 2 for return flow, and 1 utility pipe. The utility pipe would ostensibly be connected to a python vacuum so when I vacuum the sand, the wastewater goes directly down into the utility sink in the fish room and I never have to deal with the dirty water. You can also see the top end of the smurf tube that can take cables downstairs. I also have another four GFCI outlets on a second dedicated 20 amp circuit. Lastly, I will have another ethernet port on the wall as well.
Here are the pipes dropping down through the wall into the fish room. Not all finished yet. While I like the idea of having the smurf tube, I'm not entirely sure how I will feed cables through the bends. I'll figure something out though.
And what good fish room would be complete without a drain? I don't love how the drain is so far away from the where the sump will be, but oh well. I do plan on having spill trays underneath the sump and mixing stations.
I hope I've thought of just about everything when it comes to prepping the house for the fish tank. Not everything is 100% ideal, but it should be good enough. I'm looking forward to making some more progress in the winter when the house gets closer to completion.
I would love to hear some thoughts and opinions. I may not take all of the suggestions, but I like to hear the diversity of thought around it all.
Cheers
TWD
Welcome to my build thread, where I'm chronicling my journey into my first reef tank.
Some background on me and where I'm coming from. I've always loved anything underwater. I kept simple freshwater and planted freshwater tanks for a number of years. I was in the military then which meant I moved every few years. This made keeping a tank much harder, but I still tried and enjoyed doing it. I always wanted a saltwater or reef tank, but didn't know where to start and was put off by the initial investment cost. I ended up taking a multi-year hiatus from the hobby altogether.
I've since left the military and settled down a bit. I'm at the point in my life where I can feasibly pull off a larger long-term tank and decided to try my hand at a reef tank. I'm building a new home and wanted to make a reef tank a part of the build plan. So this thread will chronicle my house along with my reef tank.
This journey started in January of 2019 when I decided to look into getting back into a tank. I stumbled upon the BRS 160 series and that started me off in the reef direction. Since then I've watched just about all of their videos, as well as those from a few other YouTubers. I also bought and read a few reefing books. I figured I would rather invest $100 in books before spending multiple thousands of dollars into a hobby I may not enjoy. After reading those books and nine-months later, I'm still excited about a reef tank.
As mentioned, I'm building a new home and want to incorporate a reef tank. I work from home and will have an office. The reef tank will be in my office. The house isn't scheduled to be finished until mid-January, but I could foresee that date getting pushed back even more. So I haven't purchased any equipment yet and likely won't for about another six months. So far, I've been focused on learning more about the hobby, what I want to accomplish, and how I can set myself up (from a house/fish room perspective) to increase my chances of success, oh, and also saving money because this stuff isn't cheap!
General Objective: Have a healthy and stable 100+ gallon tank to house as many different colors of as many different species of coral (mixed), peaceful fish, and other inverts as feasible.
Stocking Objectives:
Coral - mixed coral but beginning with softies and progressing to LPS and eventually some SPS
Fish - as many small, colorful, and peaceful fish as is responsible to stock
Inverts - function over form, but I want the lives of the CUC to be valued as I would that of a fish or coral
My office is situated directly over a mechanical room in my basement. This means my mechanical room is now also my fish room. This should allow me to keep my office largely free of equipment and noise.
I told my contractors I wanted a floor that would support 2,000 lbs of weight. Not knowing how big the tank it would be, I over-estimated on the weight. They beefed up the joists to ensure they could handle the weight. This should also allow me to do a larger build in the highly unlikely event I want to.
This is the fish section of my mechanical room. You can see where a utility sink will be plumbed on the left side of the room in that little corner. The RO/DI unit will be near there. I also have the outlets all GFCI and on their own dedicated 20 amp circuit. There should be about 8 total outlets mounted about halfway up on the wall. I will also have a CAT 6 ethernet port and a smurf tube that would allow me to drop cables down from my office directly into my mechanical room. The goal with the smurf tube was to keep the Apex in the mechanical room, but still controlling/monitoring everything on this system.
Flow for days! I had them install six 1.5" pipes that go from the wall down into the fish room. I don't know what my flow requirements will be but, these will surely meet the demands. I imagined 2-3 being for drain overflow (still undecided on Herbie vs Be An Animal, Herbie should be plenty good with these pipe sizes), 2 for return flow, and 1 utility pipe. The utility pipe would ostensibly be connected to a python vacuum so when I vacuum the sand, the wastewater goes directly down into the utility sink in the fish room and I never have to deal with the dirty water. You can also see the top end of the smurf tube that can take cables downstairs. I also have another four GFCI outlets on a second dedicated 20 amp circuit. Lastly, I will have another ethernet port on the wall as well.
Here are the pipes dropping down through the wall into the fish room. Not all finished yet. While I like the idea of having the smurf tube, I'm not entirely sure how I will feed cables through the bends. I'll figure something out though.
And what good fish room would be complete without a drain? I don't love how the drain is so far away from the where the sump will be, but oh well. I do plan on having spill trays underneath the sump and mixing stations.
I hope I've thought of just about everything when it comes to prepping the house for the fish tank. Not everything is 100% ideal, but it should be good enough. I'm looking forward to making some more progress in the winter when the house gets closer to completion.
I would love to hear some thoughts and opinions. I may not take all of the suggestions, but I like to hear the diversity of thought around it all.
Cheers
TWD
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