Photos to frighten your partners with - Gary's fishroom.

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@GaryE Thanks , all good stuff to know. I am saving up for one of those. I'm going to get the smallest one , the LPH 26. It should power everything I have even if I doubled what I have. JEHMCO says it'll run up to 20 outlets. My room is small and my tanks are few but I don't like all the diaphragm pumps plugged in everywhere or the potential for failure and diaphragm replacement.
I'm with you , that bubbling sound is great. It is music in its own way.

 

[finfayce]

It's raining hard and I figure it may be the day to put some fishroom photos up. They will scare significant others who do not keep fish, so beware of where you are when you look at my fishroom.
I'm an oldish retired guy with time to play. I don't hunt, golf, watch TV or smoke weed. This is what I enjoy doing!

It's raining hard and I figure it may be the day to put some fishroom photos up. They will scare significant others who do not keep fish, so beware of where you are when you look at my fishroom.
I'm an oldish retired guy with time to play. I don't hunt, golf, watch TV or smoke weed. This is what I enjoy doing!

wow

 

[Stan510]

Your just starting!..soon old bathtubs,indoor kiddie pools,even liners from porcelain freezers..just anything that holds water that isnt a fish tank is put to use. No Martha Stewart set-up approved. Good old days,no regrets.

 

[connorlindeman]

For me it's photos to terrify my parents with

 

[Colin_T]

It's raining hard and I figure it may be the day to put some fishroom photos up. They will scare significant others who do not keep fish, so beware of where you are when you look at my fishroom.

Nothing scary about that. It's nicely set up and you even have a chair to sit on while feeding or watching the fish. And it looks more comfortable than the metal stool I had in my fish room


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All the fish tanks look great... The room just seems... Tight

With fish rooms, you want as little air space as possible and maximum water to hold the temperature. You also want as many tanks in the smallest area possible. My fish room had a 2-3 foot wide gap (it varied depending on tank sizes) between tanks so I could walk down the isles. It was a bit snug but you get use to it and it meant more tanks in the room.

I have seen fish rooms with less than 2 feet of space between rows of tanks and you literally walk sideways between the rows of fish.

In the pet shops we had between 4-7 feet of space between rows of tanks. One shop had gaps that were 4 feet, another shop had a 7 foot gap between rows.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

That is really really nice....I can honestly say that I am extremely green with envy

Not least cos your fish room is bigger than my entire flat......now wanting more room....more room = more aquariums...... <sigh> ....keep dreaming girl, cos that is all it will ever be....just dreams.....

 

[GaryE]

I have a practical reason for wanting the wider space. I'm 6"3 with a very bad knee. The racks I built for 10s are 5 footers, with the lower tanks at 3. For 20s, I had to go with 4 foot and 2, and the activity in the lower tanks would be hard to watch. There are a couple of tanks I need to crouch for, for maintenance, but for fish watching, I can sit and look across an open space and see everything. I have my armchair and the wheeled chair at the desk.

For the top rack, I can walk along and do my rounds with everything at eye level. My favourite fish are usually up there.

I'm not good at sitting in there because I see things to do and want to do them right away. A large fishroom is like a machine that needs constant fiddling with, and I love that.

A couple of times I had white tailed deer staring in the back window, and they seem to approve of the room. They don't think much of humans though.

Space is a thing,@wasmewasntit . The places I thought I'd live in were gentrified. We sold our place and moved to a small city by the sea where housing cost a fraction of what it did in the city, and where most people outside the smaller city centre took having outbuildings for granted. The house we bought just happened to have a large garage the previous owner had filled with broken appliances he intended to repair someday. Cleared out, it just screamed out to be used...

I have a few European immigrant friends who all talk about space here. My friends from Yorkshire had a hard time adjusting. The first time we were on a major highway with no cars in sight in any direction, they were positively spooked. It's something we have to think about on this forum - people live in very different places and different societies. To live in a virtual deerpark with a lot of space I'd have to be Lord Gary of Fishroom in some countries, where here, I just had to find a declining little city with a rust belt economy to keep it affordable. It's a funny world.

 

[Back in the fold]

Your just starting!..soon old bathtubs,indoor kiddie pools,even liners from porcelain freezers..just anything that holds water that isnt a fish tank is put to use. No Martha Stewart set-up approved. Good old days,no regrets.

The liners out of porcelain freezers ! I saw a couple of those years ago. A guy made tanks for Oscars with them. Definitely not Martha Stewart.

 

[GaryE]

I have already done with the weird container phase. That was in the late 1990s for me. I have gradually collected together second hand tanks and no longer use oddball containers except for hatching eggs in.

 

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Anything outside in the summer ?

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

So there is a walk around a room full of fish and plant projects. It's a 24 foot by 12 foot insulated room inside a garage twice that size.

I love it! All of it! I could happily spend all day in there, checking out every single thing! If I'm ever in Canada, please give me a fish room tour!
Oohh, if you're feeling brave/generous, you could do a video tour and explain what fish you have, what breeding projects you have going on etc


Is that a brine shrimp hatchery above the sink?

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

I wanted open floor as the room is like a tank - it'll be a year before the emersed plants grow in properly, and with the 3 windows, it will be a good space to check in on the forum from. It's set up to make water changes easy - two one hour blocks a week.
I'll need to start prepping for winter within the next month, and how the room operates in the cold weather will tell me a lot.

I really do love it! One day, I'll have a room like that. likely with tons of different cories, knowing me! lol. Certainly a lot of different nano fish; that seems to be the direction my hobby has taken. I'm not into the large or predatory fish. I'd love a monster fish sized tank, but it would be filled with nano fish in school sizes in the hundreds, rather than a few massive fish.


I noted and liked the polystyrene cut to block the gap in the top of the tank to prevent jumpers, but with holes cut to allow riparian planting! Handy trick that I'm memorising for future use. I have some pothos and monestera that I plan to grow from a tank once it's set up.

Sitting in an armchair and enjoying watching them while listening to music sounds wonderful, but I understand why it's hard to just sit and watch, without having to get up and fiddle! There's always a leaf that needs cutting off, or a filter that needs looking at, or any number of other fish jobs that call your attention! Even with 2-3 tanks I find myself doing that, I can't imagine how much more there is to do in a fishroom. Do you use a python for water changing?

 

[GaryE]

It is a brine shrimp hatchery there.

I fill with a python hose, but I modified it with a quick release. The attachment is very wasteful. I gravity drain to a low drain, with a pool hose (flexible rigid sided) and as large a siphon hose as I can get my thumb over (to start it). I found an older faucet that doesn't reduce flow, and that speeds the refills wonderfully.

I drain, then add dechlorinator before I refill. I go directly with a cold hot mix from the tap, which I like to have a degree or two warmer than the tankwater. I have mainly killies, so 19 to 21 degree water is perfect. The room's water heater is small, and I expect that in the coming dreaded cold days of January, I'll have to spread the changes out or I'll run out of hot. We shall see.

We're going to get brushed by hurricane Fiona on Friday, and I suspect that if I had created a rainwater catching system, I would have had a pretty good supply incoming there.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

We're going to get brushed by hurricane Fiona on Friday, and I suspect that if I had created a rainwater catching system, I would have had a pretty good supply incoming there.

Oh no! Please, be safe! Do you think there's a chance of losing power or anything like that?

 

[GaryE]

I have no outdoor containers. My adjustment to country living involves dealing with raccoons, skunks, bobcats, black bears and deer - and I don't want to create a local pub for them to gather and talk about the day's events with fish snacks and pints of water. If the raccoons ever do more than amble through the yard every few nights, life could get messy.

There's a lake about a km away, and that's where the drinking parties should stay.

I could lose power, but it isn't cold out so it isn't a big worry. An inconvenience. So far, barring sudden changes, the storm is tracking to create a mess where my daughters live, but not so bad here.