Would you ever build a house around a new tank? What would you do?

Have you ever built a new house "around" a new dream reef tank set up?

  • Yes (tell us in the thread)

    Votes: 68 15.9%
  • NO, but I would like to

    Votes: 266 62.0%
  • NO, I would worry about the tank later

    Votes: 81 18.9%
  • Other (please explain)

    Votes: 14 3.3%

  • Total voters
    429

Twigg

Community Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 13, 2021
Messages
34
Reaction score
17
Location
Las Vegas
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
When I retire and move to my retirement home, I will build a designated reef room but will not build the whole house around it.
 

BillFish Coral Lover

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Mar 21, 2020
Messages
247
Reaction score
160
Location
USA
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I'm in Long Beach, CA. Maybe I'll just take a sleeping bag and sneak into The Aquarium of the Pacific. That'll be the closest I'll ever get! Thanks for the idea!!!
 

AlexG

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Jun 20, 2013
Messages
2,112
Reaction score
4,897
Location
Illinois
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I am building my dream tank to the design of the house. While building a house for the aquarium design would be nice it would add more to the cost of the house that could be used for the aquarium.
 

AllanPritchard

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
May 25, 2020
Messages
136
Reaction score
269
Location
Blackball, NZ
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I am just starting the design process now. (I'm an architectural designer by trade but only reefing for 2 years). I have the house layout and style, two storey with living on the upper floor with 2m x .6m x.6m look through tank between office and living. Fish room will be directly below, will be starting construction early next year. Will be looking for advice on R2R to make sure I get as much right the first time. Al
 

vick52

Community Member
View Badges
Joined
Mar 9, 2021
Messages
33
Reaction score
48
Location
Dongola
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Did this back in 2013. Had several things in the planning. DT is 430 gallons. This faces into in the great room. Hybrid in-wall install. Tank is 3 feet wide. Two feet are visible outside the fish room so I can see from end to end. One foot extends into fish room. Tank sits on square metal tubing stand, so plenty of room below tank for equipment. Put extra rebar in the foundation to help with the weight of tank and water. Fish room is a 2x4 level lower than the rest of foundation just in case some major water spill would not flood the house. House is on septic so fish room drain goes into a dry sump not tied into septic tank. Put 3" PVC pipe in foundation that goes to outside of the house. Put flex PVC through this pipe so I can get salt water with my pickup truck and pump directly into a 165 gallon holding tank via 12 volt bilge pump. All the other usual stuff. Sink. QT tanks, etc.
Do you have any pictures??
 

Cool tangs

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 16, 2021
Messages
237
Reaction score
348
Location
Aus
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
100% this is the dream! I dont care about having multiple bedrooms or having kids give me a big trucking tank anyday! Big enough i can go diving in it this is probably more of the reason i've been pushing and working so hard on advancing in my career so I can make at least my minimum dream come true lol
images.jpeg-10.jpg

Not my piture btw, just some insperation! haha
 

leepink23

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 22, 2016
Messages
2,736
Reaction score
2,195
Location
Mississippi
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I would love to say yes, but we are building a home next year and it’s not in the plans. I have a great spot picked out for a large tank though. This is my wife’s dream home, so that’s more important to me. But I will build a shop for my frag tanks, in addition to having a large wall in the office for a big aquarium
 

Buckster

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Mar 23, 2020
Messages
2,409
Reaction score
15,695
Location
Pawleys Island, SC
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I voted no. I have a 180 with a custom stand and canopy that I put a lot of work into. I'm pleased with the unit in my living room and it's just under 6' to the left of the TV. It would be awesome to have something unique with the house built around it but I do love what I have and wouldn't want to put more time into the hobby. I'm sure that would be great for another question "How much time is too much" I guess it's all relevant! Did I sway from the original question?
 

salty joe

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 14, 2015
Messages
817
Reaction score
506
Location
Medina, Oh
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I built a 700 gallon in wall plywood tank that we built the house around. It's been running for a little over 5 years.
 

Peng1606

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Jan 18, 2020
Messages
100
Reaction score
96
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Yes and I did…. Luckily my wife is very supportive and we incorporated the design to fit a 10 x3 x3 tank, fish room behind it and 100g sump underneath. We build with bricks/concrete where I’m from so stand is cast concrete and surrounding walls are bricks. Dedicated breaker for fish room because I don’t want anyone plugging anything outside and tripping the breaker by accident.
Also have a 50g RO storage/mixing station in fish room with 200g RO storage in garage. Have set up a separate room in another part of house as quarantine room.
A17C553B-C90F-4E0C-848C-A8D016E25A87.jpeg
 

ClownWrangler

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 2, 2020
Messages
680
Reaction score
646
Location
Tacoma, WA
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
My dream house is built around a center atrium/courtyard that is basically a giant vivarium with tropical plants, a lagoon and various exotic herps, where the living room and all the bedrooms surround it so you can look out a window into it. But now that I saw this thread, I will be incorporating a reef tank the size of a wall between the living room and the atrium. Just a couple more lifetimes of savings and I will be ready to build it.
 

Buffalou

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 23, 2013
Messages
155
Reaction score
315
Location
Raleigh,NC
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
No, but I bought my current house with tank in mind, needing a perfect spot for it. So I buy the house put the tank in place everything is going great and then the tank seals fail and I have 220 gal of water all over my family room! Anyway the new tank was custom built to fill the area nicely!
 

skydirt

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Oct 7, 2018
Messages
248
Reaction score
316
Location
Slidell, LA
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I designed my house in 2019 to fully incorporate a custom 400g 8x3 room divider tank that is viewable from all sides. The plumbing goes into a wall and right for 6 ft and then turns out to a fish room. There is no equipment under the stand and the fish room was built with 3 20amp circuits, floor drains, humidity controllers, fans, sink and testing area, qt area, and also had a 105 g mangrove tank tied into the main with a separate 165 frag tank that's on a separate system. 2 125g mixing tanks for ro and salt that are plumbed into system for easy water changes. Everything is easily converted back without being able to tell there was tanks anywhere except for putl being on separate circuits and up higher on the walls than most rooms. Still a work in progress but definitely coming along. Pics are from phone and definitely in no order. Main tank and frag have came much further now. I have 10 xr15 and 4 t-5 on main now
 

Attachments

  • 20210414_180231.jpg
    20210414_180231.jpg
    194.9 KB · Views: 56
  • 20210120_181644.jpg
    20210120_181644.jpg
    196.8 KB · Views: 62
  • 20210112_164133.jpg
    20210112_164133.jpg
    182.3 KB · Views: 45
  • 20201229_114306.jpg
    20201229_114306.jpg
    230 KB · Views: 38
  • 20201226_170055.jpg
    20201226_170055.jpg
    180.6 KB · Views: 47
  • 20201219_132638.jpg
    20201219_132638.jpg
    166.6 KB · Views: 39
  • 20201102_162529.jpg
    20201102_162529.jpg
    207.7 KB · Views: 33
  • 20201025_143159.jpg
    20201025_143159.jpg
    238.4 KB · Views: 31
  • 20201025_125020.jpg
    20201025_125020.jpg
    158.7 KB · Views: 33
  • 20201005_200050.jpg
    20201005_200050.jpg
    241.3 KB · Views: 38
  • 20200709_131548.jpg
    20200709_131548.jpg
    171.9 KB · Views: 36
  • 20200324_184314.jpg
    20200324_184314.jpg
    160.1 KB · Views: 36
  • 20200324_184303.jpg
    20200324_184303.jpg
    176.5 KB · Views: 35

litenyaup

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 30, 2009
Messages
3,420
Reaction score
3,286
Location
Florida
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I did and a few things that I’m so glad I was able to do during the building process.

First and foremost was a floor drain, I now don’t know how I ever lived without it. Makes for ease of water changes, peace of mind in case of spills or leaks.

Second was the water lines ran to my garage where the Ro/Di, and salt tanks are housed. Have both 1/4” lines for fresh and salt, as well as 3/4” pvc line that can be used for either as it’s plumbed in line together using a panworld pump.

Third are 2 pipes ran out to the soffit. One is is a 2” pipe to exhaust both hot air as well as humidity that collects under the hood. It has an in-line fan to suck and force air from under the hood to outside. The other is 3/4” for skimmer to draw in fresh air to help with ph.

last but not least is the aqua bus cables for the apex as everything is ran through it including auto water change system. This goes back to the original floor drain and without that it would really not have happened.

check out my build thread there are a ton of pics and description of everything done. Hope this helps!
 

mckinleyw

AIRBORNE REEFER
View Badges
Joined
Mar 29, 2015
Messages
1,471
Reaction score
1,258
Location
florida
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I would gladly build my home around an aquarium. If I ever had the funds to do so. This has actually been one of the topics we throw in to conversations randomly with each other at home now lol. I guess we are dreaming big. probably will never happen for us, but I would if I could
 

Treefer32

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 1, 2013
Messages
1,388
Reaction score
976
Location
Fargo, ND
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I built a spot for the 350 gallon in wall system I have now... I screwed up though and wasn't planning for it to be in wall. I took out a wall and built a new wall for the tank 2 years after moving in. Then did all the plumbing myself. Which, hindsight, I'm going to pay someone to redo the plumbing. The key is that the plumbing is functional and has no leaks, but it's not pretty and the way I set it up I can't get to my sump to really do much of anything, 1/3rd of it is overcrowded with equipment and the other 2/3 is inaccessible. So, I need to redo stuff. My Tank has been running for 3 years. It's functionally doing great now. aesthetically.. Just don't look behind the curtain. . . . It's ugly. :)
Partial 3.jpg
Partial Finished.jpg
Partial Finished2.jpg
 

icedearth15324

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Jan 22, 2013
Messages
374
Reaction score
293
Location
Chicago
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
When my wife and I were house hunting last fall pretty much every place we looked at, we talked about where the tank would go. I had/have a 3x2x2 tank, with the eventual plans of upgrading to a 6-7ft tank. If we ever build our own house, which would probably be what we do next, I'd definitely build a dedicated fish room with drains, its own electrical, and all sorts of other things.
 

Mastering the art of locking and unlocking water pathways: What type of valves do you have on your aquarium plumbing?

  • Ball valves.

    Votes: 66 52.0%
  • Gate valves.

    Votes: 67 52.8%
  • Check valves.

    Votes: 32 25.2%
  • None.

    Votes: 28 22.0%
  • Other.

    Votes: 9 7.1%
Back
Top