Garage Conversion

[§tudz]

Right finally back from over seas, and I finished all the plugs tonight, so that 14main plugs installed. 2 of which are for the ceiling fans.
All them work too which is great as its something new to me, even though as a kid I want to be an electrical engineer

Just need to second coat the ceiling and the two final walls, then im gonna start moving my fish in, although I cant decide if I sould paint the floor again, as it was black but its not a dusty grey with white splatters of paint.

Ive found the racking Im gonna use: BiGDUG Limited

Ive also been looking into filtration systems, for the fish house, and moving beds seem to be the filter of the moment, and the Nexus EazyPod (from Evolution Aqua) has been suggested to me. Im waiting on some feed back on how I would get the water from the outlets back to the tanks, as I dont think the outlet is pressurised.
For more details on the filtration system see this thread

 

[weezawoo]

Right finally back from over seas, and I finished all the plugs tonight, so that 14main plugs installed. 2 of which are for the ceiling fans.
All them work too which is great as its something new to me, even though as a kid I want to be an electrical engineer

Just need to second coat the ceiling and the two final walls, then im gonna start moving my fish in, although I cant decide if I sould paint the floor again, as it was black but its not a dusty grey with white splatters of paint.

Ive found the racking Im gonna use: BiGDUG Limited

Ive also been looking into filtration systems, for the fish house, and moving beds seem to be the filter of the moment, and the Nexus EazyPod (from Evolution Aqua) has been suggested to me. Im waiting on some feed back on how I would get the water from the outlets back to the tanks, as I dont think the outlet is pressurised.
For more details on the filtration system see this thread

This looks excellent! Interested to hear how far you are now? Did you get it all sorted for christmas? Wel done it looks fantastic!

 

[§tudz]

Well the workbench and shelving has arrived.
Due to the cold and the size of the turtles I've had to move the pond back into the garage.
For those who aren't in the UK we've had some bad weather that we don't normally get, so it's been unbearable outside for the critters, heating the garage now with the oil heater.
Its keeping it at a constant temp at least. Just waiting on the electrician to come and sign it all off so I can start using it properly as I have extension leads running fro. The utility room part of the garage now.

I'll do a little video I think once all the shelving and workbench are up then you can get a full idea of what's been done.

I've also setup a tank in the office which current,y is home to an angel fish and a N. brachardi as they are the only two fish I currently have here, once the ice and snow subside and the garage has had sign off I'll start moving all the tanks from my parents and he GFs parents.

I will have to rent a van and find a big group of strong people to help move the 120gallon tank. Gonna be a challenge.

So check back tonight for the video.

 

[§tudz]

Ok below is a quick video, and some pics.

After constructing the shelves I realised that the shevling is bare chipboard
Looks like I might be off to the DIY Store again before I bring in the tanks, after looking online the best way to waterproof them is with PVA glue and then varnish, I might just PVA them though, any thoughts?

Video:

The Video
Sorry about the quality ill have to do a better one... I had the phone the wrong way around, and youtube shrank it to fit....

Pics:
Click thumb nail for full image


place for the 120gallon tanks


Water Butt

no more explainations from now on...

 

[mw1982]

Seem's like your well on your way now mate. Looks great.

Mark

 

[§tudz]

Thanks Mark,

here is the video (wrong angle) so you get a tiff neck but its better quality

Other video

 

[juggernuts]

Well I have just sat and read the whole of this article too date, and must say you have done an awsome job!

Like everyone dreams of, I too want to work towards something like this when I eventually move out which will hopefully be in the next few years!

Seeing things like this goes to show the true determination by us fish keepers to have exactly what we dream of and it makes me just want a billion more tanks.

Although refrained to my bedroom, I like to think a 4ft and 3ft tank are pretty darn good for now!

God help the eleccy bills when i do get my own place me and the girlfriend are both into fish so can see a fair few being in our future home!!


BTW AWSOME JOB!!!
Paul

 

[§tudz]

@juggernuts Thanks for all the positive comments

I tried for a long time to get the GF into fish, she finally gave in a bought a load of goldfish, not my cup of tea and FAR too much work IMHO.
Some of them died and the others out grew her 30gallon and now live in her uncles pond.
She now has a 40gallon (tall) tank with tropicals in, which is great, most the fish in the there are my cast offs, and she has a nice shoal of Corydoras trillineatus which I hope to form a good spawning group out of when they are older. I have had MASSIVE such for trills in the past getting spawns over 300 (surviving) fry where most documents state 5-10 eggs

I only got a handful of fish myself atm, as I lost a lot of my big ones when a filter failed on my 120gallon and I hadnt noticed and with such a large bio load it didnt take long to kill off the tank, I also sold and rehomed a lot of fish when I moved out.

So once the garage is setup and finished, I'll be getting back into breeding and keeping some awesome fish again, I hope, but stocking will have to wait a long while yet.

Ive got some dwarf cichlids at my parents which are breeding like rabbits, cant stop them which is great tbh.

anyway next steps still for me are waterproof the racking boards and get the electrician around to sign everything off, he did say he'd come round before christmas but that didnt happen (glad in a way as im skint again atm, lol)

The garage is something I said I wanted and I dont do things by halves Id love a big tropical pool for large RTCs, Sawblades and TSNs but if I had that I'd have no room for anything else so cant have everything, at least not yet

Sound like you got some nice tanks in your room, I was running 13 smaller tanks in my room when I was at home, that was during the mad cory breeding year

 

[juggernuts]

No problem for the comments, just read the whole thing for the third time.

I also enjoyed the way you seem to have classified that year as "mad cory breeding year" sounds as if nothing else of importance happend just literally everyday spent tending to a billion cories. I too had a little stint trying but it involved a floating tub in my 4ft got a few free bronze's out of it which are happy to this day

Ive been contemplating, well more trying to persuade the mother if i can convert the shed into something similar.Upon thinking about it I think ill see about converting half of it, thus cutting costs and damage limitation haha.

My plan is to possibley seperate the back end after the side window and have possibly a rack of 6 tanks with a chair on the other side and enough room to keep it easy to move about it enough to tend to the tanks.

Just about to draw up a design now then it will be a case of assessing sizes in the shed tommorow see how wrong i am!

As i said reading your little journal has really put it into perspective that i want to do it!

First i just get settled into keeping discus and they are loving their new home now i want to build a fish room! Never bloody happy!

 

[§tudz]

Lol, sound like a good plan, unsulating a shed could be a hard task, but depending on the size it 'shed' be possible

Ive just moved all the fish from my Parents house into my garage, that was 3 BNs, a wild breeding pair of Apistogramma panduros, a breeding pair of Neolamprologus brichardi + 29 fry (of different sizes)
and the last 4 smaller tanks, just the 120 to move then, which should be fun.

Ive got all the fry in the Corydoras tank, away from the parents, incase after being seperated they reject them and decide to eat them, even though they have been in the same tank together for over 6 months.
The A. panduros are in the same tank as they were before, the N. brichardi are in a new seperate breeding tank, and the plecs are in with the asortment of fish from my GFs house:

5 bleeding heart tetra
2 harlequin rasbora (was more lost two in the move)
1 glowlight rasbora (came with the harlequins as I rescued them from a flushing)
1 blue ram
3 otocinclus

I also have an angel (save from the same fate as the harlequins) and another N. brichardi in a tank in my office, these will be going in the fish house later in the week.

Its my birthday on the 18th SO hopefully going to BAS in Bolton to pick up something for the office tank, Im hoping either some Channa gachua or Channa bleheri I used to have a load of dwarf snake head which I sold and I lost my rainbow snakehead when a heater went nuts and decided to boil the tank.

Im still waiting on the electrician to come and sign off the electrics so I can start setting up the tanks properly, as they are all currently running off a heavy duty extension from the garage ring main.and Ive run outta plugs lol.

I need to get the cash together to pay him as well for fitting the ring mains in the first place

The fish room is a mess at the moment, due to moving everything in it needs sorting. I managed to seperate my GFs old tank (after it cracked and put 50gallons of water over the upstairs landing at her parents house) so I can but that up and use the glass in my DIY sumps.

I also broke one of my breeding tanks this afternoon, I put it on the floor at my feet then I knock a huge round airstone from the shelving and it land right in the tank and smashed the bottom of it, but not all lost more glass for me to salvage just need to buy some more fry tanks now never smashed a tank before and I killed one today and the GFs randomly cracked last week. what a week!

Once everything is set up I'll get some more pics, as currently there is a lot of ait pipe running round in centre of the room to the tanks

thinking of selling the turtles too as they take up too much room and I dont have anywhere for them to go in the garden now

 

[§tudz]

Well, Finally had the electrician round and everything is now working
I can use the sockets and I now have a light switch instead of flicking the lights in via the consumer box

here are the pics of layout, still room for a few more tanks, off to BAS in bolton and Rare aquatics in Crewe tomoz (tuesday) to spend my birthday cash on some fish for the tanks

I will post a thread Tuesday or Wednesday of the fish I buy (if any) in the pics forum, I will also get all the images together and create a page for all these.

I will also soon be starting a DIY Sump project, this will be a picture diary too like this, I have the tank and the dividers made, I just need to drill bits, and the puts I belive, watch this space

Here are the pics: (Click for bigger version)

 

[mw1982]

Looks very nice my friend....good look on maintaining all those tanks. Also happy birthday for tomorrow.

Regards

Mark

 

[§tudz]

Thanks for the birthday wishes

Tanks should be easy enough I had 13 tanks when I was breeding cities that was a handful as they were in my bedroom when I lived at home, that was hard to do

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Wow, congratulations on completing this project that is almost certainly a pipe dream for many fish keepers!

Do you have any general stocking plans for the tanks, such as a tank or two for each sort of biotope?

 

[§tudz]

done 150miles today spent £250 on fish.
Watch the pics thread later for some terrible in bag shots