Rorie's Fish House Project

[Rorie]

Week 9 - Part 3!

So, experiment time! My LED lights have arrived so i wanted to check if they would give off enough light.

The LEDs come in a 5m long strip. They run at a lower cost than having loads of florescent lights in there. My room is 4.5m long, so it will work out that i need one strip per level of tank.... 4 strips at a cost of £40....not bad.

BUT, they are pretty tiny, so the question is if they would light the tank enough, not for plants, but just so the fish have light. I will have normal lighting in the room for when i go in to do work.

First came a bit of DIY to block off all light to the room. In the end there will be no windows or natural light getting in there.

You can see the tiny strip of light. I half filled the tank so that there was water to help refract the light, but also an air gap to simulate the elevation the lights would be at. They are also on top of a sheet of glass.

I am very happy with the results!!

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Pretty cool! quite blue though or is that reflecting off of something else?

something liiike the blue background lol

 

[Rorie]

I think the blue is a mix of blue paint and also my camera playing with the colours. It looks quite white in real life - i made sure i got the pure white LEDs

 

[dgwebster]

Been using LED to light my Vivs cheaply for a while now and had been investigating tank usage. This has made the choice easy, cheers

 

[Rorie]

Well, its been a while since i have posted - nobody has hassled me for an update which has made me more lazy!

So, i have been a bit delayed in getting things done due to other commitments...... like buying chickens eggs and incubating them! That has meant my priority had to change to dig up about 6 tonnes of chuckies and get grass planted instead! Thats all done now, so back to the fish room. - chickens due to hatch on the 28th May!

So. I had an electrician come and finish off some of the wiring i was struggling with and check everything i had done myself. All is well.

I now have six sockets all wired up which will run my LED lighting (all individual plugs). I had issues with controlling them though - i got 3 timers which run inline, but non work! Some didn't work with LEDs, some required a light circuit rather than the sockets. But eventually i got there!

All the plastering is done.... i may have done a good job with the joinery, plumbing, electrics etc, but i HATE plastering and i HATE decorating. I gave it a bash, but my logic kept coming back to "Its only a fish room"!

So the plastering was just about sorted, so my "that'll do" logic kicked in and i started applying a liner wall paper. I THOUGHT that i had to put this up prior to painting as the plasterboard would soak it in. Turns out i needed to paint a primer before that! So the lining wall paper is a waste of time. That wouldn't have been as bad if it didn't look AWFUL! REALLY REALLY BAD! I have seen smaller speed bumps! Never mind. Its only a fish room!

So today i painted the 'textured wallpaper' with bathroom paint - just as a back up incase of any humidity. I then put on a door and we're just about ready to go!

I think i may need a second coat of paint, but this weekend means i can start building fish suff!!! Getting the plumbing in, the frames etc etc. All exciting stuff is away to kick off! FINALLY!

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Well it's about time! Thanks for the update and get some pics of your progress up ASAP!

 

[Biulu]

Great project! But as you say, it would be nice to see some fish related pictures now . I am especially curious about your discus....

 

[Rorie]

Just to tickle your fancy...

Walls are all painted now. Today i will lay the tiles, put in the stands and start on the pipe work! Exciting!

We have had 6 pages of BUILDING a fish room, now its time to kit it out Much later than planed, but a hobby never happens on time.

Photos on Sunday!

 

[Rorie]

Week "Lost Count"

So, since the last post i have finished all the plaster board, taped and plastered all the seams and screws, papered with lining paper and painted the fish room. I then laid down my floor tiles - not great, but does the job!

NOW its time for fishy stuff.

First thing was to get my water treatment stand in. All i can say is DAM i'm good! Not a cm to spare! Literally! This is going to have a big tank beow which can be filled from the tap, or from the big RO water butt that'll be above.

Next was the fresh water pipe work. A hose will go from my massive water pump (taking water from the storage tank) and lift it 2.4m up. A gravity system then works its way down two walls, back to the storage tank. Above each tank is a T-section which has a reducer from the 32mm to 22mm. I will then have a 22mm tap. Cheapest way to do it - the taps were so expensive but couldn't get any other way to do it. I can then control the water into each tank, one, or all by adjusting each tap. There will then be a tap on the outlet back into the storage tank so i can change the pressure if needs be. I'm looking forward to seeing how this works!!

I then sorted the wast line - this was really tricky as i was limited in height. The u-bend set the hight and then i spend about half an hour trying to ensure a negative angle while ensuring it was under the bottom tank. I think i got there in the end! I hope!

Next job.... 1) i need to get a new air pump and hook that up to a 22mm closed loop system. 2) Get the storage tanks in!! 3) get lids for the tanks 4) hook up the LED lighting Hopefully won't take too long now

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

woo! now this is getting exciting!

 

[PERCY]

Where did you get the led lights?

 

[Rorie]

woo! now this is getting exciting!

Indeed, though all a little tricky as the fish are in some of the tanks i wanted to use/set up as i go haha

Where did you get the led lights?

ebay! £9 for a 5m strip, then the plug was about £6. But the cost of electricity will very quickly pay that off. And not too expensive when you look at the price of balasts anyway

 

[ian_m]

I showed this thread to a mate who built a fish keeping shed maybe 20 odd years ago and he was green with envy and wished you luck. He just wished he had the time and space to do what you are doing.....O

He had the following comments to make based

- Make sure every pump in your water "moving system" has a bypass loop (ie T valves & bypass loop) so that you can "turn" down the pump power and also isolate the pump for repair. He didn't do this at first but soon learnt to. Basically if you restrict the output of a pump to reduce flow you can seriously shorten its impeller life and because you didn't fit bypass or isolating valves it is a major pain to get the pump apart. Even after a year of two he would get a jammed impellor due to bit of dirt that got in the system. Oh, make pumps & isolating valve accessible as you will need instant access when it all goes slightly wrong and water is escaping.

- Siphon, siphon, siphon. It is very easy to accidently create a siphon between tanks, especially if you modify something without thinking about it too much or consider the case of when the power fails. He more than one lost his whole tank of filtered water over the floor, where he tripped the power and water carried on flowing after the pumps had stopped. I think the technique here is when pumping from a roof tank you have a loop on output of pump going up to roof, above tank, and back, thus when power fails the tank can't siphon out. Not to sure what he means but I can see the logic and wet floor failure mode.

- Frost....Despite all the heating and warm water (and ventilation) the ball valve to the tank in shed roof froze more than once, overflowing the tank. The tank was fitted with an overflow to outside, but that froze full of water. Solution was better frost heating and a second overflow to drain in shed. He also had the mains water pipe in freeze as well in the bit where is came from the ground to the shed, very confusing when it happened.

- He also ran a large tank in the house (300l ?), with the filtration located 10foot away in the shed. 20years ago the latest thoughts were large trickle filter beds with water being trickled onto sheets of filter material & sand, before collecting in a tank and being pumped back to main tank.

- His pumps were either 22 & 28mm central heating pumps as well as swimming pool pumps as pumps specially for fish did not exist in affordable form 20 years ago.

- He had to give it all up and sell off everything when he moved house early 90's and since getting married and having a family hasn't restarted this massive enigineering interest.

 

[Rorie]

Thanks for all the tips.

I think i will have managed to bypass all those things from happening by having a much simplified system! I will not be runnign sumps or anything - all the tanks will run off an air pump and air filters. I decided that instead of drilling all the tanks and draining like that, i'm just installing 'drain points' under the tanks, so i can use a good old syphon but without the buckets!

My big pump is going to be used for water changes only, but i have made sure i will have access to it I have spent a LONG time planning all of this.... and what feels like even longer building haha. There will no doubt be things i have not thought about enough though... only time will show me what they are i guess!

 

[ian_m]

Another one you haven't thought of I remember my friend reminded me of...

Never drain/siphon/pump a tank, for water change, straight to a drain (or my case onto front lawn, via a window). Always into a large bucket first, then pump to drain/lawn.

Reason why is, one day you will drain/siphon/pump you favourite fish, favourite plant, your favourite sand, all your fish fry or that vital missing peice of pump you dropped straight into the drain. Been there done that. Sand blocks drains according to my friend

My mate siphoned a large amount of his sand straight into the drain when he accidentally lowered his siphon tube too low and I once pumped some fish fry onto the lawn straight from the tank I now siphon using a gravel cleaner into a large yellow builders bucket and when I am sure there is nothing interesting settling out in the bucket, yes I have found fish !!! I pump it out onto front lawn. Use a foot switch (Maplin, I think I got mine) to turn the pump on so you don't have to faff with electric switches whilst your hands are wet.