I sure wouldn't mind this problem.

[mickey]

My brother is currently in the process of having plans drawn up for his new house,he plans to add a room 20'x20' to house his fish collection, which you might have gathered he is into in a big way.(especially cichlids)
He has a problem though (if you could call it a problem) he can't decide weather to have 5 or 6 100g plus freestanding tanks or have the tanks built into the walls.
Any of you guys know anything about built in tanks, this is unchartered territory for both of us.
What are the pros and cons, eg. water changes, tank cleaning access to the fish, how easy or difficult is it?
Any help and advise will be much appreciated,or if anyone can come up with any other novel or original ideas for Shams fish room,they will be much appreciated also.
Cheers.

[yashinfan]

I know someone who did have a fish tank built into their room and they wished they had never done it. Water changes were a pain, not to mention cleaning the tank or if your fish die and you have to start again it would be a HUGE hassle to clean it all out. Although it would be quite beautiful I would advise against it. It would, however, be very cool to have a tank that ran across an entire wall. On a nice stand that would look amazing.

[RENEGADE]

why did you post the same Q twice?????

[Cearbhaill]

If the house is yet to be constructed and the budget allows, I would have the larger display tanks put into walls facing a living area, but serviced from an adjacent room i.e. the fish room. The display tanks front pane would be completely visible while the lighting and assorted cords/tubing would be hidden behind the wall.
That would be the best of both worlds- viewed easily and serviced easily. If you set up the plumbing in the fish room correctly then servicing any of the "outward facing" tanks would be a piece of cake.
At any rate I'd be spending loads of time looking at other peoples fish rooms for ideas.

[wetmanNY]

The fish "room" could be long and narrow, sited between the "display fish room" but with one big tank on the opposite wall, displaying in the other adjacent room. It should be plumbed with a double sink and a wet-proof floor. Floor drain (water changes)? Small refrigerator with freezer (keeps fishfood out of the family fridge)? And it needs room for non-display quarantine, grow-out and spawning tanks.

[mickey]

Originally posted by RENEGADE
why did you post the same Q twice?????

Sorry i was interrupted mid post and didn't realise i had already posted the question once, my mistake :o

[mickey]

Originally posted by wetmanNY
The fish "room" could be long and narrow, sited between the "display fish room" but with one big tank on the opposite wall, displaying in the other adjacent room. It should be plumbed with a double sink and a wet-proof floor. Floor drain (water changes)? Small refrigerator with freezer (keeps fishfood out of the family fridge)? And it needs room for non-display quarantine, grow-out and spawning tanks.

As mentioned above, he has allowed 20'x20' for the fish room,so if he had a 5' corridor on 3 sides this would leave the room15'x 10'
would this leave enough room for the requirements you mentioned above.
He intends to have the display facing into the fish room so he can go there and relax, enjoy his fish and not disturb anyone else in the household,all occupients are not just as crazy about fish as my bro
Cheers.

[RENEGADE]

look at this onehttp://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9355

[slipknottin]

I designed this a couple weeks ago just got a little bored. You could easily change out where things are located. All the tanks are designed to be attached as one large system so I could easily do water changes and so there would hopefully be alot of live food to support baby fish without needing to be target fed. I designed it to be a SW system so thats what certain things are. Give me some design changes and Ill change around the plans for you and post them up. BTW- the room in the plan is 23' x 25'


http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid65/pdea876fda824637a3572ff6e0bd93177/fbe63773.jpg

[mickey]

Originally posted by slipknottin
I designed this a couple weeks ago just got a little bored. You could easily change out where things are located. All the tanks are designed to be attached as one large system so I could easily do water changes and so there would hopefully be alot of live food to support baby fish without needing to be target fed. I designed it to be a SW system so thats what certain things are. Give me some design changes and Ill change around the plans for you and post them up. BTW- the room in the plan is 23' x 25'


http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid65/pdea876fda824637a3572ff6e0bd93177/fbe63773.jpg +

That sure is a good looking plan for a fish room,you have put a lot of thought into the design and as far as i can tell it should work very well, my brother would be delighted with a setup like that.
He will have to make a few alterations as he dosn't have the room to match your dimensions,he has to stick with 20'x20'
any thoughts on what tanks or equipment to leave out while still staying with most of the design that you so kindly posted.
Ps. will your design work with a fresh water setup.
Cheers.

[slipknottin]

Well the room was maximized to give alot of space to the water containers (just stock tanks- http://www.globaldialog.com/~jrice/fauna_sump/fauna_sump.htm)

Those could easily be ditched to allow more space for tank racks or additional items. He might not need the 1/2 bath, and I doubt he would want the 450 gallon tank.

The room does however, give extremely good access to the tanks, both front and back on all the ones that you might need access too. Once youve had a tank where you have access from both the front and back, you find it hard to go back to just having access from the front.

Ill play with the dimensions and layout and see what I can come up with. Does he have any sort of plan for a large tank? Or any other specific displays he would like to highlight?

[slipknottin]

Heres a quicky sketch of a layout. Let me know what you like. Sorry about not being able to read the captions on the bottom left there, that is another sump.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid65/pdd3311e1a389704b03f7f87f6ff88a27/fbe441fb.jpg

[RENEGADE]

i want a fish room!!!

[mickey]

Originally posted by slipknottin
Heres a quicky sketch of a layout. Let me know what you like. Sorry about not being able to read the captions on the bottom left there, that is another sump.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid65/pdd3311e1a389704b03f7f87f6ff88a27/fbe441fb.jpg

He currently has 4 100g tanks, 1 community tank and 3 housing various types of cichlids, these he plans to take with him.
We love the general layout of your plans but would maybe modify them a little to incorporate a couple of breeding tanks and a few grow out tanks.
Thanks again for your time and effort.
Cheers.

[superjohnny]

It seems to me that if someone is going to go as far as designing an entire 400 sq ft room deticated to their fish hobby 1) you would want it visible to the main living room in the house and 2) you would want it to be saltwater.

I like freshwater tanks and I like BIG freshwater tanks. But if you're going to go all out you may as well build a nice reef. I mean it's clearly evident that cost is not a factor (or much of one at least). Does he really like cichlids that much?

Do you have any budget established for this project?

<edit> May I be the first person to say, "That's going to be very friggin' cool man." That'll be so cool Jesus himself would say, "Hey man, nice setup you got there."

[mickey]

He has absolutely no experience of sw setups so to undertake the building of a reef setup we reckon would just be to much of a gamble, so we will stick with the cichlids.
He is going to situate the room away from the main traffic in the house so he can go and have peace and quiet to relax and enjoy the fish when he wants to, it will also be a nice place to enterain his friends,as for the budget ,whatever it takes.
Cheers.

[Hebdizzle]

have him put a couch in there so he can sit and look at fish (or a least a nice Lay-z-boy

[O-man21]

Slip, I have a lay out for him but I can't figure out how to get it to show up or make an attachment.


How did you do yours, I just used the paint program, that might be why it won't work.

[slipknottin]

O-man if your just using paint you can save it as a .jpg or .bmp and upload it direct to AC, or you can upload it onto a different site like www.picturetrail.com or www.imagestation.com

My new design is in progress, Ill post it in a little while.

[slipknottin]

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid66/pc78a4cc23fc8e7a3a182ef80aed9d42d/fbe2553a.jpg


The 40-90 gallon tanks could also be stepped down to tanks such as 30 breeders, 20 breeders, or that sort of thing, depending on what he wants or needs. Personally I would think 6 or so 40 longs would work great for breeding/grow out tanks. I could scrap the 180 too, but I think it would be an awesome display tank for the most favored fish in his collection.

[somefinnfishy]

you want a seperate water heater,fuse box,FLOOR DRAIN mounted in the low point of the room.
a small furnace to heat the room hotter than house or the real deal radiant floor heating.
Overhead outlets are sweet.
Want to get fancy use sky lights over your alge scrubber tank and a central system.

[superjohnny]

slipknottin you have some really cool ideas. You should be commissioned!

[O-man21]

How do you upload stuff to AC?

[superjohnny]

When you're posting a reply, right above the "Post Reply" button there is a spot to attach a file.

Personally, I upload them to my web-server where I host them myself. Hosting pictures costs bandwidth and that costs AC $ so be responsible with that feature... it's not something most forums offer.

[O-man21]

Forget it, I made it too big, then I tried to make it smaller, and it totally blew the quality.

Thanks for the posting help.


I like your newest one slip.

[mickey]

Originally posted by slipknottin
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid66/pc78a4cc23fc8e7a3a182ef80aed9d42d/fbe2553a.jpg


The 40-90 gallon tanks could also be stepped down to tanks such as 30 breeders, 20 breeders, or that sort of thing, depending on what he wants or needs. Personally I would think 6 or so 40 longs would work great for breeding/grow out tanks. I could scrap the 180 too, but I think it would be an awesome display tank for the most favored fish in his collection.

Now this looks like the ideal setup but i am just wondering will it all fit in the 20x20.
Cheers

[slipknottin]

It was done in a floor plan designer, it should all be accurate within 6"

[mickey]

Thanks slip,what about the technical stuff somefinnfishy mentioned it might work in well with your design.
Cheers.

[tnlguinn]

here are some links to sites where the guys have tanks in the walls.
http://www.moyesreef.com/home.html

http://www.rockcanyon.com/reef/

have fun.

[slipknottin]

michael moye was the co-creator of 'Married with Children' :D

As far as technically things in the fish room, Id use a modified jacuzzi heater to heat all the tanks, and Id consult a heating/cooling technician to provide you with a good heat exchanger. If you keep the tanks at 78 degrees that would also keep the room at 78 degrees, so you will need an AC if you want comfertable working conditions.

[mickey]

Originally posted by tnlguinn
here are some links to sites where the guys have tanks in the walls.
http://www.moyesreef.com/home.html

http://www.rockcanyon.com/reef/

have fun.

thankyou for the links they made very interesting reading but my brother has decided to go with the free standing setup cheers.