180g In Wall Construction

[Boxster]

Hi everyone, after contemplating the thought of finishing our basement for a year, my wife and I finally decided to do it. More importantly, I had successfully convinced her to include a 180g In Wall design to add more accent to the whole basement. The emphasis on adding accent is an important one.

So, after a month of planning, I finally decided that it is time to show some pics and have you guys out there to chime in your great ideas. I am hoping to learn from all of you so just feel free to ask any questions.

 

[Boxster]

180g AGA Mega Flow

 

[Boxster]

Fish room construction

 

[Boxster]

More framing pics from the back

 

[fishfreek]

Looks great. Is there a drain in the fish room? Im thinking water changes and where the water will go. Will you plumb a cold water line into the fish room for water changes/makeup water?

Looks like your early in the framing proccess because I dont see any roughin for electrical yet aswell as the stand for the tank.

Whats the height of the tank? Judging from the buckets and the stools im guessing 4' 6"?

 

[Boxster]

Fishfreek: You had point out one of the big setback in my fish room. Originally, I wanted the plumbing guy to make a sink in the fish room. However, All my plumbing of the house is in the store room, right side of the house facing the tank front . Drilling in the fish room to make a drain will be very costly. So to get around with that, I am going to install a deep sink and drain in the store room. Put my RO/DI in the store room as well above the sink. Run the output of the RO/DI along the ceiling to the fish room. Going to the other direction, I am going to run a PVC piping from my fish room, along the ceiling again back to the sink in the store room. Use a pump to pump my water changes through the PVC pipe to the sink.


The stand heights is 38" from he carpet

 

[GrndHog]

You might think of setting a ventilation fan in the ceiling of the fish room. I wish I thought of it when I built mine. It will get awfully humid in there.

 

[fishfreek]

You might think of setting a ventilation fan in the ceiling of the fish room. I wish I thought of it when I built mine. It will get awfully humid in there.

Or put a dehumifyer in there. Kind of counter productive since in theoy once it pulls the mosture from the air its going to pull it from the tank but as long as you dont size the unit to large it will be ok.

 

[darb2]

how much room did you leave between the tank and framing?

 

[GrndHog]

You might think of setting a ventilation fan in the ceiling of the fish room. I wish I thought of it when I built mine. It will get awfully humid in there.

Or put a dehumifyer in there. Kind of counter productive since in theoy once it pulls the mosture from the air its going to pull it from the tank but as long as you dont size the unit to large it will be ok.

Not to mention they put out alot of heat.

 

[Boxster]

GrndHog: Yes, The ventilation fan is in my planning. The vent will share with the bathroom as well. Also, I am planning to use Greenboard for the drywall inside the fish room.

Darb2: My tank is 72x24x24. The cut out area in the picture is 72.5x24.5

Just got a call from my LFS that my tank will arrive on June 3rd. Saw that the SAM's club is selling the Brute can last night for $19. Brought 3.

 

[BillyZ]

What about plumbing PVC lines for a sink along the outside wall around the stairs and through the closet into the bathroom and tie into the Hot/Cold/Drain lines in there? I attached a quick sketch of what I'm thinking so you'll see the route. Plumbing lines through wood framing is easy enough and you can do the PVC work yourself as well.

 

[Boxster]

BillyZ : You brought out a very good idea. Will check with my plumbing guy. In this case, I can hang my RO/DI unit in the fish room as well. Will the water pressure be good for the RO/DI unit? The pics attached is my original idea. The PVC will go up along the ceiling.

 

[yaksplat]

That can be done, but you're also going to need a vent line or else you'll get no flow down the drain. Just like a Z-flow without a siphon break.

Jim

 

[BillyZ]

if you run supply lines from the bathroom to the fish room you can put the deep sink right in the fish room (that was the big red box in my sketch). WIth your original idea you would have had plenty of preasure in your RO/DI line to fill your tub but you would only be able to pump water out of your waste tub to a certain extent because your line goes up into the ceiling. As you're pumping water, the tub and pump will run out of water. It will gurgle and siphon out some, but eventually the line will fill with air the water in the line will fall back into the tub so you will always have some water in that drain tub. and you will always have to take equip etc out of the room to wash/rinse etc for maintenance. If you plumb supply lines directly into the fish room you can have the deep sink directly in the fish room and do all your cleaning, filtering water changes etc right in that room. And, more importantly, you wife gets to keep that all important 4-6 square feet in the store room that the sink won't be taking up in there

I'm not sure how far along your basement is right now, so here's a sketch of what I would do if I were setting that up and the work was still in the framing stage:

(PS) i noticed i didn't have a second bin for prepared salt water. minor chagnes in the layout make room for that in your setup.
Also, for running the drain line. One of your photos made it look like the 2x4s along the outside wall at the bottom of the stairs are long face out? If so, those may have to be "turned" to make room for the plumbing.

 

[BillyZ]

*Sigh* yes... why do I always forget that?

a vent line, from the drain in the sink, can also be run through the ceiling to tie into the vent with the bathroom drain.

 

[Boxster]

BillyZ: I like the idea of running the drain line from the bathroom so that I can put the deep sink in my fish room. I will talk to my plumber when he comes in.
My basement is still in the framing stage and so this is the best time to make any modification. If you see from Autotopoff pic in earlier post I do have another 32g Brute for Fresh saltwater mix. It will be side by side with the RO/DI bin. I stole the idea from Weatherson in the RC forum. See pic. (The pic cannot be uploaded. I hit my 2MB limit )

Yaksplat/BillyZ: I still don't see why you need a vent line in the bathroom for??? Can you guys explain?

 

[BillyZ]

well the plumbing in your bathroom should already have a vent. However the drain in your fish room will also need a vent. The reason you need a vent at the sink in the fish room is because of the vacume that will occur as the water moves down through the pipe to towards the bathroom. Under every sink is a P-trap that holds water in it to keep fumes from escaping the plumbing and sewer systems and backing up into the house. As you drain the water from your sink water flows through the trap and down the pipe. When the sink is empty some water stays in that trap but there is still water moving through the pipe. If there isn't a vent near that P-trap, the water moving down the pipe can begin to create a vacume. This will cause a gurgling noise as the vacume sucks air in through your P-trap and it will also suck some of the water out of your p-trap and therefore you lose the block against the sewer gases. (nasty smelling, bad for your health and potentially explosive [methane])

The vent at the other end of the pipe, the one that should already be in the bathroom, is important because before you drain any water down the sink, the pipe is full of air. If you fill the sink with water, then pull the plug, all the water rushes down the pipe and it has to push that air somewhere. The vent allows the air to get out of the way quickly so the water can flow unrestricted.

 

[Boxster]

Trying to upload more pics on my updated progress but my upload quota has exceeded. Hmm....

Well, anyway, the switch for the room is frame out. The plumber installed the cold water pipe into the fish room. Thanks Billz for suggesting to put the sink in the fish room instead of the storage room. An added plus, the plumber agree to dig the floor to add the drain pipe. No PVC around the walls anymore......
The tank stand is also partially done. Added the ceiling framing as well.

A small disaster happened over the memorial day though

The Electrician forgot to turn back the power for my sump pump in the basement after they done their work on Friday. And guess what.....it had been raining on Fri, Sat, Sun and Mon. I saw a small patch of wet cement floor on Sunday night. Thought that it may just be my window leaks due to the thunderstorm and went to bed. And comes Monday morning........... flooding..... Good thing that I caught it on Monday morning and realized that I have not heard the sump pump noise for a while. And lo and behold, exactly what I guess, the switch for the sump pump at the service panels is off....

I spent the whole memorial day moving all my boxes out of the basement to the garage. This morning, everything is back to normal and I have a long talk with my Electricain this morning :? Well, I guess this is better than 180g of water on the carpet.

 

[yaksplat]

That's the main reason that I do everything on my own. I personally don't trust someone else to do something. I used to work in construction building houses. The main theme among all the subcontractors that I worked with was, "I can't see it from my house, so it's fine". Basically saying that it doesn't matter how bad of a job I do.