Bought Land- Building House with tank in wall- Have Q's

[Saltyintraining]

I am now going to be building a new house and want to put a tank in the wall. The tank will be it's own fish room behind the wall.

I currently have a 175BF but will probably be going to a 250-300 gal.

Please list your wish list or ideas for a fish room.

What should I use instead of sheetrock?
Should the room be on zoned air conditioning?

Here are some of mine that I will be doing

Backup genset for whole house
floor sloped with drain in center
separate circuits for lights and pump
ceiling vent fan to suck out humidity
sink for mixing and R/O
shelving for gravity fed refugium

Thanks,

Torrey

[dan]

i would have running water to that room. small exhause fan in one corner of sealing. your really going to need that zone A/C, maybe a small unit just that room. sounds great that your going to build a house with a tank [ large tank] in mind. i would go bigger if i were you. you only get one shot if it's in the wall.

[matt]

If you do a search on reefcentral, especially on the tank of the month series, I'm sure you'll find lots of people who have done this; probably those people would be happy to offer advice and suggestions. Sounds fun!

[RobertG]

I have done an inwall setup with my own reefroom. I really think you have covered the bases. The Drain is the best idea yet, got home yesterday found that my DIY Skimmer colector bucket spewed a little. Drain is great. I went with a AC unit in the wall. I put a Medusa Dual Temp. Controller. The unit comes on when the tank get above 78.4. The unit stays off most of the time, comes on once the halides kick on. About 3 or 4 PM. Never gets above 80.5 degrees. That vent really sounds good, it can get a little fishy smelling. This is from the skimmate. I am putting in a Stainless Steel cover on the backside of the stand. This will be so the stand takes no standing water on the edges. Also a work counter. Easy to wipe clean. If you are going with a chiller then still get the AC unit. Or plumb some vents to the interior room. With a Return Air to your house. GO BIG. I already think I should of went bigger. Use Sheetrock, have your contractor place it a 1/4 inch from the floor. Also use metal studs in the walls. Or atleast the bottom plate. If I had'nt there would be sheetrock damage if left unchecked for longer than a few hours. Also use greenrock, water durable sheetrock.

By the way it is real FUN, No one to move around in front of tank. Nothing to worry about getting wet. I LOVE IT!!!!

[jroescher]

Check out this thread. It's very long, lots of pics, and lot's of detail.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=236668&perpage=25&pagen umber=1

[Henry]

Hey that was the one I was going to link. Better set aside about 1-2days to read thru the whole thing.

[RobertG]

I cant hang!! To **** long for my slow connection! But sounds very nice. Aswell very well planned.

[R.Allard]

I would put a hose bib in the room as well. that way you can hook up a hose and wash everything down if you need to.also put a 2"P-trap not 1.5" in the floor ... less likley to clog and easier to clean out.
make sure the plumber puts a primer on the p-trap to keep water in it so all the water dosent evaporate and the sewer/septic gasses dont come back into the house.
I would have the electrician put a seperate pannel box in that room so you can put as many breakers as you need for power and you can buy the GFI breakers for it instead of having the little ones in the wall on the socket.
have the electrician run a 3" or two 2" conduit under the concrete from the pannel box to the tank underneath the concrete and up the wall 32" so you can pull as many lines as you need for power.Just make sure you have atleast a 200 amp service to the house.
also have the electrician run 3 or 4 sets of conduit from the
pannel to over head of the tank for your lighting itll be much cleaner and allot less wires hangin out..
if i think of anything else ill let ya know.
Robert
p.s GET A CHILLER dont rely on the house AC unit. for the money your going to be spending on this tank its a small price to pay that way the house ac dosent work as hard and youll have peace of mind... the best thing i ever did was put a chiller on my tank...

[RobertG]

I would love to do a chiller, however at this time I cant afford it. I have a separate wall unit in this room. I have hooked it to a medusa dual temp. controller. It has my temp. in tank at a range of 77.6-80.6 degrees. I have a separate temp guage that has min/max temp. It has never gone above 80.6 or below 77.6. This seems to be working great right now. I will see how the summer months do.

Salty how big do you plan this room to be? My room is 8' X 15' I took half my garage & built around it. My electrical is a total of 80 Amps. I had 4 spots on my breaker panel. I had a electrician friend of mine install 2 double 20Amp breakers. So I still have 2 more spots to add if needed.
He also installed individual GFCI Breakers for the plugs. Under my stand he installed three Dual gang boxes. Each has 20 Amps total. It is wired in a fashion that if one outlet throws GFI the one next to it is not affected. This is great for isolating issues, if any occur. Also for not being shocked.

I know they work great!!!!!
I got a first hand experience, I was setting up & went to install powerhead. Voltage leaked, I had plugged it in first then submerged it. millisecond little tingle & pop went breaker. Thank God I had put these in. Both hands in tank!! It would not of been good. I have been zapped doing my own electrical things before it was nothing like that. I barely felt it!!

Good Luck

BTW
Double your time you think it is going to take to setup. & the money....LOL