Salt Water Wannabe

[tgeer]

I have been in the hobby now off and on for a long time. I had a salt tank about 20 years ago and loved the beauty of the environment but became frustrated with the salt spray and maintenance. My recent tank was a 55 G fresh water live bearer tank. This tank just sprung a leak which was my prompting to try salt water again. I plan on purchasing an 80 G tank with a built in corner over flow and run it out to a sump in my garage. MAYBE! First I need to plug the leak in the 55 tank and secondly the garage is not heated. I am a DIYer and plan to build my own stands for the tanks and modify the 55 for the sump. I am just not sure if a sump in an unheated garage will be able to maintain the heated water. I was planning on wrapping the sump in foam insulation and having heaters in the sump. I have about 1,000 questions that I am going to go through the threads to see if any have already been answered.
Thanks

 

[melosu58]

Welcome aboard

 

[austinsdad]

Welcome to AA!

What part of the country you livin in? That way, we can offer opinion on the sump in the garage issue.

I assume with a sump, you're thinking reef tank, right?

 

[tgeer]

Sump In the Garage

I live in the Richmond Virginia area. The garage is insulated and the sump would be placed on a wall next to the house and away from the garage door. It is an ideal location with a water heater and plumbing close by. I placed a thermometer in the garage last night to monitor the temperature differential.

 

[tgeer]

Sump

I am thinking about a reef tank.

 

[melosu58]

I live in midlothian Va. Good to see a fellow Richmondite.

 

[tgeer]

You have a beautiful tank.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Welcome aboard!

As far as temperature goes, I don't think having the sump in the garage would be an issue. You might have to have more Watts of heating capacity than normal, but that's it.

 

[Mitchell0605]

Why would you put a beautiful thing like a reef tank in your garage? Is it your blokes room?

 

[tgeer]

The reef tank would be in the house where I would then connect the overflow pipe through the adjoining wall to the sump located in the garage instead of the sump being located under the tank. This would give me the ability to easily perform maintenance on the sump (more room), located close to a water supply for easy top offs and water changes to the sump, isolate any noisy from the sump to the garage, and also not have as much of a concern with getting water on the floor.

 

[tgeer]

The outside temperature was 31 degrees with the garage area being at 57 degrees. The temperature this morning is 28 outside with the garage being 55 degrees.

 

[Mitchell0605]

That's a genius idea tgeer. Not sure about the temp situation though.