Rorie's Fish House Project

[Gavin3171]

Those LED strips are quite effective. The ones i got must be poor quality. Loving the project by the way.

 

[Rorie]

Almost there

Tanks have been cleaned and put in place (minus a couple). plumbing is just about done - taps in place etc.

I am away to pick up a large tank for water storage, so once thats in i can test my fresh water system which will (hopefully) rest my mind!

I have lids for the tanks on route to reduce evaporation.

The heaters are now in place, but need to install a new double glazing unit into the window (outside the fish room) to finish off the weather proofing of the room

 

[Aquamaniac]

This looks really good. Can't wait to see how it will be finished. Although i do have a question regarding the safety of some of those shelves.
I my last job we used to have shelves just like those to put stock. And in one of those shelves we stocked drinks, packets of 24 cans or bottles.And i remember very well the shelves could not cope with the weight,they were deformed in places, broken loose in others.
I do know that a shelf full of coke cans is heavy but so are those tanks when they are full.
So that's my doubt,after some months with drinks they deformed,after a year they started to break will they hold those tanks in the long run?
Apart from that everything looks great.
Keep posting

 

[dgwebster]

Ive just realised that your fish room is about the size of my hallway.cupboard (*starts to hatch a master plan....*)

 

[Tolak]

I'd watch the ends of the shelves as well. Those welds tend to deform & then snap when a lot of weight is applied. We had shelving like that in a shop I worked at long ago, used them for inventory of printed material, forms & such. They're good up to a couple hundred pounds, once you start pushing the 300 pound range they start to give out. Spanning some plywood across from rack to rack will help distribute the weight a bit more, and it appears that you do have a couple tanks spanning across, which is a good thing.

We didn't go easy on those shelves, but also had a maintenance department that would hammer the mangled shelves back into shape & reweld them. Keep an eye on them, don't climb them & slam 50 pounds of material on them like we did & they should work out OK.

 

[Rorie]

Little worrying that you guys are all questioning these sands!! They are supposedly rated to 300kg per shelf My link its CS94 i have. can only apply a maximum of 110 L per shelf (the tank width is 16 inches, height is 12 inches and the length is set my the length of the shelf - 914mm). so almost 1/3 of the possible weight.

I am hoping this will be acceptable!

Tolak makes a good point, dynamic loading is likely to cause a lot of issues, so hopefully having steady loading will help reduce fatigue. My main concern just now is my packers! I need to get then secured.

 

[dgwebster]

Rated to 300kg / shelf under distributed load, which you have. Assuming some overheads (e.g. Dust) and generously applying it, 150kg per shelf is your distributed load. At worst, a Monday shelf may have issues imo so always worth carrying out maintenence checks.

 

[minnnt]

Amazing work Rorie!!! That is a PROPER fish house!!!!

 

[Biulu]

Rorie, do I see it correctly that you have several 20 gallon long tanks in which you built a divider?
Maybe it is the distortion of the picture, but are you able to get comfortably into the room? In the picture it looks as if the rack and door are almost in the same place?

I think you are really using your space very well; it gives hope to a lot of us that would like to have something similar but think we don't have the space for it.

 

[Rorie]

Rorie, do I see it correctly that you have several 20 gallon long tanks in which you built a divider?
Maybe it is the distortion of the picture, but are you able to get comfortably into the room? In the picture it looks as if the rack and door are almost in the same place?

I think you are really using your space very well; it gives hope to a lot of us that would like to have something similar but think we don't have the space for it.

My room was 4.5x4.5m in size. I wanted both a fish room and a games room so i had to be smart with my space. I also had to work around things like windows and a boiler.

I purchased 4 ft tanks 16 inches wide and 12 inches tall, (so 40 US gal i think) for £5 each! So basically my room was going to be made for these (by far the cheapest way to do it. I got a 4 ft stand which i planned to use for water storage, so the total width of the room is 4 ft. This means i have pleanty room to move around in the rest of the area. (see one of the photos above where the stand fits...JUST! Made to measure )

I also wanted to keep discus, so at teh other end of the room there is a wide stand (the blue one) which will take my 1.5 ft dicus cubes. The size of this stand dictated the location of the door into the room.

I also purchased a narrower than usual door to ensure i could open it fully!

Last night i put in my 36x24x24 inch water storage tank (on the orange stand next to the water tap). It was very difficult to get it in there, but i managed! I didnt want to wait for it to arrive before building the rest of the fish room.

 

[Rorie]

Update

Soooo.... its been a while, so here is whats been happening

Excuses for not working on the fish room:
Summer arrived for a few days, so I had no choice but to do work outside rather than in the fish room. Sorry!
We bought chickens eggs and hatched them. We now have 6 chickens to add to our zoo of animals. Needless to say they took up time

With the fish room:

I got my perfectly sized water storage tank in place eventually (should have gone in first but didn’t arrive until late in the proceedings), so I could test my water system.

I used solvent weld pipes and pipe cement to make my network of pipes for filling the tanks. I knew there would be high pressure water flowing through, so I put plenty of cement glue in the connections and did it all properly. However, first run with water showed leaks at just about every connection! And I mean LEAKS! So I had to dry the system for a few days, re-glue and retest. More leaks. I then watered down the cement with a chemical so it would theoretically run into all the gaps. As the tanks were in place this was tricky to do. Wait a few days for it to dry, then try again. Most leaks sorted, one or two tiny leaks left. AGAIN, leave for a few days to dry, add more glue, leave a couple days and test. FINALLY we are there!

Needless to say these pipes created a lot of problems! But they are sorted now.

All my tanks have been leak-tested and have passed. WOOP!

My drain is now sorted.

Discus tank number 1 is not in place. I think I cracked one of my 18” cubes when moving it which is really annoying, so that will get checked prior to going near the fish room haha.

My air tubing is now in place and I have installed metal screw in valves for the air lines.

My water butt is now in place (yet again, PERFECT fit! I even impressed myself with that one!).

Next step: put lights in place. I am still not sure what way is best so I need to play about with this for a bit.

Photos soon for those who are still watching this.

I am having a nightmare with something though. A friend had 12 of my aquariums and smashed the lot. Then had £60 of custom made glass lids for my tanks which have now vanished off the face of the earth! Needless to say this results in cash-flow problems and also delays in getting my room finished! Highly annoying!

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Nice to see an update, sounds like you've been having fun lol

What's the story with all of these smashed tanks man?! No good!

 

[MBOU]

Cant wait to see photos of it up and running!

Doesnt sound like much of a mate though!? Jeeezz....

 

[Rorie]

Well, the tanks were apparently in the back of a work van, unsecured and it got moved resulting in smashed tanks. The lids have gone walkabouts.....but i'll be making sure it all gets sorted!! haha.

I think it is almost at video making time rather than photo time as its getting cosy in there haha

 

[Biulu]

Glad you're making progress! I can't blame you for taking advantage of the summer though; now that the temperatures are a bit normal again (we were over 30 degrees last week) I also prefer to do things outside instead of inside.

What a blast about these smashed tanks! Hopefully you can replace them cheaply.