Rebuilding fishroom... follow our progress here :)

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severum mama

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We've been trying to finalize plans for the fishroom rebuild for some time now. For those who didn't know, the room itself is a converted 2 car garage (25'x 18'). There are a lot of things that we are changing and it's going to be a huge project, but totally worth it in the end to have everything the way we want it. We have a lot torn down already but there's still tons to do. The metal shelving is all going away and we'll use homemade wooden racks in its place. The tanks that are on regular stands will be moved onto wooden racks instead so we can stack other tanks with them.

Nothing too exciting here, just cleaning tanks in the driveway. :)
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Today I moved this 29 gallon and 75 gallon from their old spot against the wall into the middle of the room so we can set up racks against that wall. There were 4 55's there but I tore them down and cleaned them up. They're in the first photo. The metal rack behind the 29 and 75 (and the metal rack on the other side of that) are in various stages of teardown.
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These are the systems that are going in this weekend... lots to do to make room for them!
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Looking good :D can't wait to see the finished room. Wish I had the space to set a room like this up myself.
 
Cool, cool! tagging along to watch this develope. Are the tanks in the rake plumbed together or are they seperate?
 
The current racks? They are filtered individually with sponge filters driven by a Sweetwater Aquatics S-11 blower.

The 2 systems coming in this weekend each have a sump. All plumbing/pumps are included so we're going with that.

The tanks that will go on the new racks we build will use sponge filters. HN1 is going to redo the PVC and valves for the air to make that more efficient. For inverts/small fish/breeding projects, etc. we decided that we wanted to have plenty of tanks with individual filtration.
 
Sorry, I was asking about the racks coming in. Sounds like a nice combo. With multiple tanks draining into a single sump and then being pushed back to multiple tanks via a single or multiple return pumps, you will need to plan on some extra time tweaking the system the first few days to get the drain/return ratio set-up right. Then as you run the system, you'll need to keep an eye on those return pumps as they wear and slow down, you ratio of drainage to return will change. By all means don't set it up late it the day, assume you have everything set-up correctly and walk away from it. You'll end up cleaning up a big mess - just some words of wisdom from someone who has been there and done that :ermm:.
 
Sorry, I was asking about the racks coming in. Sounds like a nice combo. With multiple tanks draining into a single sump and then being pushed back to multiple tanks via a single or multiple return pumps, you will need to plan on some extra time tweaking the system the first few days to get the drain/return ratio set-up right. Then as you run the system, you'll need to keep an eye on those return pumps as they wear and slow down, you ratio of drainage to return will change. By all means don't set it up late it the day, assume you have everything set-up correctly and walk away from it. You'll end up cleaning up a big mess - just some words of wisdom from someone who has been there and done that :ermm:.

Oh, heck no.... we're not doing THAT! lol

The two units that we're picking up this weekend are each individually sumped, (new word), and should be easy to tweak to avoid the flood. The rest of the room will be individual tanks on wooden racks, all air filtered. We're going to put in a drain system that is essentially PVC to a drain with multiple input points for a hose input and redo the air plumbing.
 
Oh, heck no.... we're not doing THAT! lol

The two units that we're picking up this weekend are each individually sumped, (new word), and should be easy to tweak to avoid the flood. The rest of the room will be individual tanks on wooden racks, all air filtered. We're going to put in a drain system that is essentially PVC to a drain with multiple input points for a hose input and redo the air plumbing.

Gotcha - so one sump per tank. That makes it a lot easier.
 
No... that would be ludicrous. Twice the tanks, half the fish... lol

Each of the sumped systems are basically 2 stacked partitioned 75Gs with a 60ish G sump. Marine Fish Shop Units

The rest will be individual tanks (no sump, only air).
 
No... that would be ludicrous. Twice the tanks, half the fish... lol

Each of the sumped systems are basically 2 stacked partitioned 75Gs with a 60ish G sump. Marine Fish Shop Units

The rest will be individual tanks (no sump, only air).

Ok, gotcha - sorry I'm a little slow. So you will have two 75 gallon tanks draining into a single 60 gallon sump and then a return (split or double pumps?) will take water back to the two 75s. You will have to balance the drainage from the two 75s to the volume of your return pump(s). Hopefully the plumbing is fitted with ball valves - it it isn't, you are going to want to install some so you can control the rate of drainage. Otherwise you may get more drainage than return or vice versa. With only two tanks it won't be a huge deal to balance out, but it will still take a little tweaking. The first time we did this, we had six 20 gallon longs draining into a single 15 gallon sump and then split returns from a single return pump going back to each tank. It was a total nightmare to balance out, and it was a saltwater system, so everytime one of the return pumps started to slow down due to salt residue build up everything got out of wack and had to be readjusted.
 
Ok, gotcha - sorry I'm a little slow. So you will have two 75 gallon tanks draining into a single 60 gallon sump and then a return (split or double pumps?) will take water back to the two 75s. You will have to balance the drainage from the two 75s to the volume of your return pump(s). Hopefully the plumbing is fitted with ball valves - it it isn't, you are going to want to install some so you can control the rate of drainage. Otherwise you may get more drainage than return or vice versa. With only two tanks it won't be a huge deal to balance out, but it will still take a little tweaking. The first time we did this, we had six 20 gallon longs draining into a single 15 gallon sump and then split returns from a single return pump going back to each tank. It was a total nightmare to balance out, and it was a saltwater system, so everytime one of the return pumps started to slow down due to salt residue build up everything got out of wack and had to be readjusted.

All the plumbing is already set up and the return pumps are included in the purchase price. There are ball valves installed in the plumbing already. As always, it will take some tweaking, but the DAS systems are mostly going to be plug and play. These systems were up and running until about a week ago. :D

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Awe - cool! Looking forward to following your progress. Also want you to hurry up and get some stock in ;).
 
So much to consider.... We have a storage unit full of tanks as well as what's already here.

20 XHs and 25 gallon acrylic cubes
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20 gallon highs, and a big acrylic cube
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We also have some 10s and 6 more glass 20s. A lot of our 20s in the current setup are drilled so we are probably going to need some more undrilled ones. I'm thinking we should have plenty of 10s.
 
Wow! Lots of tanks. Did you do anything with the walls to help out with the high humidity that you will doubt have as a result of having all those tanks set up?
 
Wow! Lots of tanks. Did you do anything with the walls to help out with the high humidity that you will doubt have as a result of having all those tanks set up?

No, and for the most part it has been fine, except for some pretty significant damage to the wall where we had a pipe leak. We'll need to add a dehumidifier, I'm sure.

So is all this for personal enjoyment or are you planning on running a fish store from home?

Sorta both.
 
If you dont mind me askin, where did you get that big black show piece with all the tanks in it? Like pet store tanks?
 
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