Im Looking To Build A Fish House, Got My Equipment Sorted

[Sp00ky]

I have an old half constructed garage with concrete base that my grandad begun many years before i bought the house from my grandma. I have recentley purchased...


18 - 24Wx18Hx12D tanks
5 sumps of the same size
5 aquapond 2000 punps
all frame work and heaters

I am going to completed the garage that my grandad begun ( its made from breeze block) and put a roof on it. Now, whats the best way to insulate the walls? I intended to put a frame work up all around the walls and put rock wool in it. I have seen one of my friends fish houses and its about 12 long by 6ft wide and he said it cost him £500 for the plastic sheeting stuff he has on it. However, i was at widegtuk's at the weekend and i over heard him say he was getting some plastic stuff ( which i assumed was the same) for £2 for an 8x4 sheet !!

anyone any ideas?

 

[The-Wolf]

I think smithrc mentions insolation in his fish shed thread
even if it don't it makes vey good reading
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=102949&hl=

 

[a.d.wood]

Hi there,

My fish house is inside a brick built garage. The walls were framed out with rough 3"x2" and then the spaces (and roof) filled with the Travis Perkins equivalent of kingspan (a solid polystyrene based insulation material that is foil lined on both sides), this stuff is very easy to cut by hand with a saw to the right size. The walls were then lined with 1/4" ply board.

My fish house is about 12 foot square (soon to be 12'x 36' ), the sheets (8'x4') I think were about £10 each and I probably used about 10 sheets.

One thing to think about is heat build up. With all the equipment you will end up with in there you will generate a fair bit of heat. As heat rises you need to be careful that you do not end up with tanks at the right temperature at the bottom of the rack and warmer tanks at the top of the tank. I installed a small vent axia fan at roof height to extract air and then push it back in at floor level. This air circulation keeps all tanks at a uniform temperature.

Andrew

 

[Sp00ky]

Hi there,

My fish house is inside a brick built garage. The walls were framed out with rough 3"x2" and then the spaces (and roof) filled with the Travis Perkins equivalent of kingspan (a solid polystyrene based insulation material that is foil lined on both sides), this stuff is very easy to cut by hand with a saw to the right size. The walls were then lined with 1/4" ply board.

My fish house is about 12 foot square (soon to be 12'x 36' ), the sheets (8'x4') I think were about £10 each and I probably used about 10 sheets.

One thing to think about is heat build up. With all the equipment you will end up with in there you will generate a fair bit of heat. As heat rises you need to be careful that you do not end up with tanks at the right temperature at the bottom of the rack and warmer tanks at the top of the tank. I installed a small vent axia fan at roof height to extract air and then push it back in at floor level. This air circulation keeps all tanks at a uniform temperature.

Andrew

thanks for that mate. Do you have any heaters in the your tanks (or sumps....whichever you have) or do you just rely on the heat generated from the equipment? i was thinking of getting some form of space heater or equivalent in there to heat the atmosphere....

also, the vent you speak of, is it just on a loop that goes out of the roof and comes back in outside or is it just a pipe that goes from ceiling to floor internally??

I think smithrc mentions insolation in his fish shed thread
even if it don't it makes vey good reading
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=102949&hl=

thanks mate. will check it out

 

[a.d.wood]

thanks for that mate. Do you have any heaters in the your tanks (or sumps....whichever you have) or do you just rely on the heat generated from the equipment? i was thinking of getting some form of space heater or equivalent in there to heat the atmosphere....

also, the vent you speak of, is it just on a loop that goes out of the roof and comes back in outside or is it just a pipe that goes from ceiling to floor internally??

The current fish house tanks are all individual 'units' (not a central system) with their own heaters (filtration is by air driven sponge filters), although the new section will be on 2 or 3 central systems (aiming for about 100 tanks in the long run so need to make maintenance a bit easier).

I found the majority of the heat build up was from the flourescent starter units (didn't help much with having the majority of these mounted at ceiling height!!), I've since switched to the standard 'shop' style strip light above each row of tanks (3 rows of 15" tanks per rack) and this has made a big change to the amount of heat produced (reduced) in the fish house but it still needs the air flow from the extractor fan to stop the stratification of heat in the tank racks.

I've considered space heating before but concerns remain over 'hot spots' in the tanks close to where a space heater would be sited (as with most fish houses very little space remains for anything that isn't a fish tank!!!).

The extractor fan is mounted at the top of the partition wall, feeds back in at floor level (just uses the flexi pipe and as it's in the garage it doesn't have to look pretty).

Having a fish house also means you can experiment, this is the aquaponics system on one of the discus stock tanks, absolutely fantastic for stripping nitrates from the water.

If you're ever down north Staffordshire way, you're more than welcome to visit the fish house.

Regards

Andrew