How would you spend 10k for a 8'lx2'wx3'h Setup - Page 2

hawk · #11 01-23-2008, 08:44 PM

Your room size looks similar to mine (12'x8') it is tight but I made it work. My furnace and hot water tank were also in the same area. I partitioned off the furnace completely and switched from natural gas to electric for the hwt. Reason being, that I sealed the fishroom up very tight and have exhaust running 24/7 and didn't want to worry about negative pressure with the natural gas water tank in the same room. My tank is 96"x30x30" I'm glad I didn't go higher, I'm 6'3" and it is still a pain to get to the bottom of the tank. Extra depth front to back would be nice if space permits. The remainder of your budget will be chewed up pretty quick with just odds and ends, everything from extra heaters, sand, exhaust fans,cooling fans,wto, electrical up grades,cabinetry, the list goes on. I probably spent 1k just on plumbing. With the cost/investment involved in a big tank you'll also want back-up emergency power, built-in redundancy in heaters and water movement, etc. If you are planning a full-blown reef you can expect to spend min. $1500 on adequate water movement. Again with the investment involved I definitely would get a properly set-up qt system. At the end of the day you'll probably have at least a couple k worth of fish and even more in corals to protect from in-coming disease. It'll be a great project but be prepared to add significantly to your 10k budget. Good-luck

rdnicolas · #12 01-23-2008, 09:06 PM

Thanks for the feed back!, I'm going to take your comments and update the layout. I think I'll even do an elevation view for the mechanical room. I have a 9' ceiling in the basement so I was hoping to optimize square footage and take up more lateral space. I'm also planning to have access panels above the display tank so I can service the tank from both sides, however I realize the one corner will be tougher b/c of the furnace location... Perhaps I'll also add an access panel on the 24" end as well.....

Reggie

BTW the sump I show is actually my house weeping tile sump. I was assuming using my old tank as a sump (4') and sticking half of it under ther the display tank (in the form of an "L")

Zylumn · #13 01-23-2008, 10:35 PM

Tank is too close to the furnace unless it is a G60V or equivalent. Also check out this tank and spend 8-9 k on goodies. http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=38000

Pan · #14 01-23-2008, 11:15 PM

I'd build the room the tank is in with a slight grade and a drain in it. Also waterproof/rubberize the floors. You will also need a massive water/change salt mixing station, you can buy big food grade containers from all sorts of plastic vendors among other places. Humidity control is a must especially with everything else you have in your basement. I would suggest dedicated electrical for the fish tank room with appropriate fault protections in place

Pansy-Paws · #15 01-24-2008, 01:03 AM

You've done some good planning ... hope there's a construction thread with pictures in the future.

Like hawk, I have a 96"x30"x30" tank, and would agree that 36" tall will be a challenge. Get a good cleaning magnet, but even so, you'll need to be able to reach down to the sand level for cleaning right at the sand interface (unless you go bare bottom).

I concur that your fish room will be tight, and add the following equipment thoughts: I'd recommend having a 75-100 gallon tank for quarantine purposes, as a stand-alone set-up in another room to prevent cross-water contamination. For salt making, I have two heated 50 gallon containers (20"x30"), one with RO/DI, one with mixed salt water, so I can perform automated water changes (and be able to sustain a 50 gallon change per day in the event that the bacteria in the quarantine tank crashes from medication). I wasn't able to fit these in my fish room, so one takes up a downstairs shower stall, and the other is in the furnace room ... lots of plumbing

Good luck

rdnicolas · #16 01-24-2008, 02:47 AM

OMG Thats would work well for my setup at a fraction of the cost. Thx for the link I pm'd him to see if its still available.

untamed · #17 01-24-2008, 06:02 AM

One of the things that I did right was to build a system for raising and lowering the lights. It provides a nice solution to being able to move the lights out of the way so that you can work on the tank. By moving them straight up (9' ceiling helps you), they still light up the tank while you are working.

If you slide the lights out of the way to work, then you can't see what you are doing because it is dark. I know that some people mount permanent "work lights" on the ceiling specifically to light the tank when the main lights have been moved out of the way.

I started with a simple rope/pulley idea, which eventually became slightly more complex....(understatement)

Bottom line.....think VERY hard about every maintenance task required. Ask yourself how to design your system to enable those taskes to be done as easily as possible. Water change, glass cleaning, sand cleaning, skimmer cleaning, sump access, pump replacement/cleaning, overflow grate cleaning, light bulb replacement, Water purification...

rdnicolas · #18 01-24-2008, 06:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by untamed

One of the things that I did right was to build a system for raising and lowering the lights. It provides a nice solution to being able to move the lights out of the way so that you can work on the tank. By moving them straight up (9' ceiling helps you), they still light up the tank while you are working.

If you slide the lights out of the way to work, then you can't see what you are doing because it is dark. I know that some people mount permanent "work lights" on the ceiling specifically to light the tank when the main lights have been moved out of the way.

I started with a simple rope/pulley idea, which eventually became slightly more complex....(understatement)

Bottom line.....think VERY hard about every maintenance task required. Ask yourself how to design your system to enable those taskes to be done as easily as possible. Water change, glass cleaning, sand cleaning, skimmer cleaning, sump access, pump replacement/cleaning, overflow grate cleaning, light bulb replacement, Water purification...

ThanksFor the advice Untamed... BTW I'm Big fan of your system. Its what inspired my wife and I to go big... That being said, I just noticed that the tank Zylumn linked is even taller than the 36" I was originally aiming for. Regarding Cleaning the sand. My wife an I currently own a python cleaning system (pic): with a 24" suction tube. The tube is sometimes too wide to get around rocks so I'm planning rigging a smaller diameter tube to get into the tighter spaces. I was hopeing I'd be able to get by using that with a kagillion cleaner crews. Regarding water changes I was planning to use a small 20 gallon tank and make 5% changes every week. (However I like Pansy-PAws contingency system with his 50 gallon containers.)

rdnicolas · #19 02-11-2008, 06:45 AM

Zylumn Thanks for the link. I purchased This tank! The overall dimensions are 84lx24wx40h w/ 3/4" glass. When you first posted the link it had already been sold but lucky for me it fell through. Arek was exceptional, kind and very helpful too.

Now I just have to find a qualified moving company in Calgary to bring it up to Edmonton. Any suggestions?

Just when I thought the day could not be any better my laptop fried as I was revising my CAD drawing. It doesn't boot up anymore. I hope my information is still on the hard drive so I can recover it.... I'm going to bring it in to work tomorrow to see if the IT Dept can retrieve my files.

Regarding my original layout. I'm playing with the idea of forgoing the in-wall setup for a standalone tank w/ custom millwork. The reason is that if we were to move to another house, it would be less work to tear the system down for transfer. I still plan though to use the furnace room for the sump and rest of equipment.

I start framing the basement in the next few days so I'll take some pics as the work progresses.