Thoughts in Progress: My Big Tank

[Captain Quint]

The sky is not the limit. lol I know it is going to be a hefty build, but I also hate wasting money. I know you can spend as much as you like on anything. I have a number in my head that I'd like to stay under - but that's including room modifications, cabinets, plumbing, electrical (I think I'll need to get a new fuse added to the fuse box, but I already needed as part of the house control system), etc.

The CO2 and CO in the garage is an interesting point as well. I'll have to think about how to get around that. I have been thinking about the climate control of the water and battery backups in case of power failures. There's systems where you can tell it to keep everything online up to 90% battery life then start cutting things as the battery is dieing. The last thing to be cut, I imagine, would be the climate control stuff. I have a system like this in my house, and the last thing to cut in case of power failure is wifi and security system. The tv's and sound will stay operational for about 2 minutes. Which is nice if it's just a quick flicker.

If I were to get some of those species, I would definitely plan around them. I don't think they're in the immediate future though. Maybe a few years down the road.

The house does not have a basement but it does have a decent sized crawl space. That was one thing that surprised me when I moved to the area. Very few homes have basements. Apparently the ground is too hard or something. I'm not sure what you mean about plumbing to the kitchen. I will have to look into that to get an idea about what you are referencing. I already check the tank on breaks! And make breaks to check on it, and it's not in my office! LOL That's why I will only keep a small desk in the room, and move my main office to another room. Plus, I'll have more space for the tank(s) that way!

Several homes in the mountains here in NC have basements.

 

[Peace River]

@Bleigh - check out this thread about a public aquarium in Mexico for ideas! I think you might like the penguin tank!!!

 

[Bleigh]

Piece of cake on 600+

Wow! I love that! What's going in it?

 

[Bleigh]

My house runs on natural gas so I've been eyeballing a natural gas generator for back-up. That would significantly increase the price of the build, but you could sell it as a household item in case of emergencies. That is of course if you have natural gas hook-ups. Gotta love justifying things!!

I don't think we run on natural gas, just select items... like the water heater and hvac.

 

[Bleigh]

With a large reef, a generator is mandatory. I use an $800 gasoline generator I can wheel outside to use, so its not a huge expense. Batteries are still good do have if the power goes out and you aren't home.

A generator is an item o've considered off and on over the years - normally when snow is expected. Luckily, I've never had an outage during a snow storm.... nor an extended outage ever. That may be something I decide to purchase before hurricane season. I would imagine I could get one for a deal right now, but that's just me speculating.

 

[Lukas75]

A generator is an item o've considered off and on over the years - normally when snow is expected. Luckily, I've never had an outage during a snow storm.... nor an extended outage ever. That may be something I decide to purchase before hurricane season. I would imagine I could get one for a deal right now, but that's just me speculating.

If you have natural gas connections running onto the property then it is likely it can be done. That having been said it isn't cheap. The laziness in me likes the thought of it just kicking on and I do nothing though. I've been lucky on power failures too, nothing more than a few seconds, but I'm aware that the power doesn't fail until it does...

 

[Bleigh]

I would not do crawl space, you will put off maintenance in a crawl space. Look at what a battery backup cost, and then if you need a plumber and electrical anyways consider a whole house standby. I have no idea where you are, I had one installed for 8500 with a whole house surge protector. Will kick in automatically in less than one minute and power my whole house including ac, well, sump, fridges, tvs, furnace, wifi, and yes the aquarium. If you are thinking big build as well, you may be able to use your crawl space for pipe only and then go down into it and back up in another room where you could have your sump, an auto water changer, your QT, and your uncle scrooge money vault. I would think pex would be pretty easy to plump and since it is a low pressure system you would not really be worried about leaks. Temperature would again be a problem unless you heated the pipe with a thermostat to keep it aquarium temp.

I meant, the crawl space will make plumbing easy. I for sure would not want the system to be fully in the crawl space. Yikes.

There is room to work under there and I can stand up fully in some places, so putting in pipes shouldn't be too big of a hassle. I can plumb anywhere in my house back to a central location without much hassle - as far as accessing the space anyway.

I have access to home automation stuff, such as batteries, due to a family member. It brings these costs down for me a bit. My biocube is currently connected to the two in the house, as are tv's camera, etc. When I do the big tank, I'd like a dedicated one for just it for short outages.

Wait... Back to this uncle scrooge money vault.... Does it come pre-stocked with gold coins?!?!?

 

[Bleigh]

Several homes in the mountains here in NC have basements.

Lol... too bad charlotte isn't in the mountains.

 

[Bleigh]

@Bleigh - check out this thread about a public aquarium in Mexico for ideas! I think you might like the penguin tank!!!

Sweet! I interned at the Georgia Aquarium when I was in college. There was a penguin exhibit there with a few viewing bubbles from inside the exhibit. It was really cool.

These giant facilities are amazing!

 

[Captain Quint]

Lol... too bad charlotte isn't in the mountains.

Hahahahahahahahaha..........Touché

 

[Bleigh]

If you have natural gas connections running onto the property then it is likely it can be done. That having been said it isn't cheap. The laziness in me likes the thought of it just kicking on and I do nothing though. I've been lucky on power failures too, nothing more than a few seconds, but I'm aware that the power doesn't fail until it does...

I feel like the extra work to get it to kick on automatically wouldn't be worth the chance that the power did fail for an extended period. If so, I wouldn't mind wheeling it out and hooking it up when needed. I grew up in south Georgia near the pan handle. Hurricanes have knocked out our power regularly. My dad always went and pulled the generator out. It never seemed like a crazy hassle.

 

[crusso1993]

Any recent ideas?

 

[Panky]

Go big or go home! Lol. I also say don’t do acrylic. It sucks! Just remember to not forget flow. Tons of flow

 

[vetteguy53081]

This will be a nice location especially a place where you spend time and can enjoy the TANK and perhaps get nothing done LOL

 

[vetteguy53081]

Go big or go home! Lol. I also say don’t do acrylic. It sucks! Just remember to not forget flow. Tons of flow

I have 2 acrylic tanks and easy cate and everything in tank magnified. Can’t believe I didn’t do acrylic sooner.
Agreed: Bigger is Better

 

[Halal Hotdog]

I have an in-wall tank and it is the greatest thing in the world. The area came with the house but there wasn't a tank. It is a unique size, took me a year to find a tank that met the dimensions. A few things I would recommend.

1. Go with a standard reasonably available size. Tanks fail and sometimes you have to replace them. Having a custom tank built is very costly and not better then standard ones in mass production. Also prefer glass due to increased strength and less prone to scratching/chipping.

2. Length is very important. My tank is 6' and I really wish it was 8'. The 2' extra means all the difference in the world when it comes to fish. One fish that really would be a great one to have is a sohal tang, but I don't want to put one in a 6' tank. My clown trigger is getting big and the 2' extra would be a big game changer.

3. Height and width are not your friends when it comes to cleaning. Personally for a rectangular tank I would not go more than 2' for both, especially height. Cleaning an in-wall tank can be tricky, the easier it is the more likely you are to do it. My ideal dimensions would be 8'x2'x2'.

4. I have a fish room immediately behind my tank and love it. Having a large sump and all your equipment in a spacious area will make the maintenance much easier and will lead to a prettier DT with less work.

 

[Sarah24!]

Hello,

You know love the thought process but have you seen finding dory? Well instead of changing the office lol let’s redo the kitchen and make an open ocean display right in the middle. I can promise you won’t have enough focus to cook and too never have to worry about that sense nobody will pay enough attention to eat, they will watch the open ocean display lol.

Kidding aside can’t wait to see how this turns out and you know going to 300 gallons or even a 8 foot or 10 foot length tank would be fun. The stalking limits would be endless, and office work would never get done. You could put on a good movie aka finding Nemo and just get lost in your own office.

 

[Wallace180]

I currently have a 29 gallon biocube. To say I've fallen in love with salt water tanks would be an understatement. So I know I am going to upgrade, but am not totally sure to what yet. I'm certain there's all kinds of things that I have not thought about, and I know there are tons of things I have thought about, but still have no clue what to do. I decided to go ahead and start this thread to keep everything in one place. This will be a slow and a long project. There's a lot of other things I have thought about that I did not include here, but the post was already getting long.

What I HAVE decided is that the new tank will go in what is now my office (pictures below). I have decided to move my office upstairs. I have two guests bedrooms, one of which rarely gets used. My thoughts is to put a wall-bed in here for the few times I need a second room, but otherwise, this will be my main office space. My current office is right off the front door on one side (the big opening) and the kitchen on the other, so it tends to be a little loud, so moving my office away from all the excitement seems like a good move either way. (The giant desk is going to go away .)



I think this is a good spot because the garage is on the other side of the wall. This will allow me to do some direct plumbing for ATO and water changes.

I think I want to tile the room. It is an 11 X 16 space. One issue is that since this room is right off the entry, it need to look really nice, additionally it needs to match the kitchen, which was finished with a remodel about a year ago now (Pictures below). The doorway is into my current office. I like the idea of the fish tank in this room too because it is out of the way, but still very visible.



I know that I want to keep some fish that are not reef safe at some point (harlequin tusks, butterfly fish, trigger fish, etc.). I am not sure if this is the best tank to have has a FOWLR, or if I should plan that adventure for sometime in the future. There's noting to say that I can't add another tank on the opposite wall as a FOWLR at some point. I really love corals, so if I'm going bigger, I feel like it should def be a reef tank initially.

These are my inspiration pictures. I know I want to keep a desk space, because I want the room to stay useful and I'm sure I'll enjoy being able to work where I can watch the tank(s). I do like the look of an open top (with crating of something to keep the fish from jumping), so I'm not sure I would want top cabinets. I like the third picture with a hanging light over the tank in lieu of can lights.





I am also planning on tiling the room. That is what I am currently pricing out. I know I want a drain in the room, just in case there's an accident and water goes all over the room. (Hopefully it will never be needed, but I do have a 5 year old boy who is decidedly unaware of his surroundings and even less aware of things that may break around him). I'll update the post later with tile ideas.

Let me know what you think of the ideas!

A drain is a great idea. Tile the floor and tile baseboards.

 

[Bleigh]

A drain is a great idea. Tile the floor and tile baseboards.

That’s the plan, my man! I figure in the case of a terrible TERRIBLE accident, it would be horrible to ruin the flooring as well as the tank.

 

[Bleigh]

Hello,

You know love the thought process but have you seen finding dory? Well instead of changing the office lol let’s redo the kitchen and make an open ocean display right in the middle. I can promise you won’t have enough focus to cook and too never have to worry about that sense nobody will pay enough attention to eat, they will watch the open ocean display lol.

Kidding aside can’t wait to see how this turns out and you know going to 300 gallons or even a 8 foot or 10 foot length tank would be fun. The stalking limits would be endless, and office work would never get done. You could put on a good movie aka finding Nemo and just get lost in your own office.

Lol. If I hadn’t redone my kitchen about a year ago, I would go for it! I plan on only having a small desk in the room when it’s renovated. For mail and bills and stuff. Maybe for the boy to do homework where I can watch him.