Basement Reno And In-wall 205g Reef

[teebone110]

Wow, that's fast service!

 

[curiousphil]

Man, looks like a ton of work, I'm tired just from looking at the pics! Your new layout looks good. What are your plans in terms of a drain and exhaust - do you have a drain already in your soon to be fish room, and do you plan on venting the tank to the outside? One of my concerns with a tank this size would be the humidity, especially in a basement.



lol, too funny... not sure about the plastic decorations, a large SPS colony might be a little nicer

LOL yes that would be more suiting!

Humidity and catastrophic failure are my two biggest concerns. I am lucky in the sense that I do have a very dry basement, not a hint of condensation in the walls in the year-and-a-bit that we have been here, but it is still a big concern of mine, especially since I will be almost fully finishing the basement as a livable space. There is no floor drain in the fish room area, the nearest floor drain is about 15 feet away beside what is currently the bathroom door.

The plan to make my system failsafe from catastrophic failure (read: tank seam gives way) is lay a pond liner on the floor with a 4 inch lip going up all four walls. I've calculated the volume of the linking to be about 215 gallons, which will nicely hold the entire tanks water volume. To remove this water I would just sit a sump pump on the floor and pump into the floor drain around the corner.

To address the humidity problem, I am going to install two vent covers above the lights, on opposite ends of the tank. One for fresh air intake and one for exhaust of humid air. I am going to construct a manifold of sorts, a section of 3/4 plywood with two holes in it, that I will afix to the window frame. I will use those holes like bulkheads and run the intake and exhaust piping through to the outside. This allows me to fulfill Beth's wish (more like demand) of not putting any holes through the brick... without the extra effort of running 15-20 feet of ductwork over to the dryer vent. The exhaust pipe will have a fan installed inline, and per Yvette's suggestion a few pages back I may link the exhaust fan to a humidistat.

The one part of my plan which i haven't yet figured out, is how to control whether the intake is open or closed. I can foresee two cases where I may want to close the intake vent: when the air outside is hotter and more humid than the air in the fish room, which will likely be often in June through August; and in the bitter cold of winter... say January through February when we are constantly sitting below -10 degrees. I could just install a damper that I manually adjust, that would be an easy solution. Or maybe I install a flap that only opens when there is negative air inside the fish room.... not sure. It would be cool to have a temp and humidity sensor outside that could be connected to a controller and programmed to open/close the intake valve under certain conditions - but that is probably getting way too crazy!

Wow, that's fast service!

Very fast!!! The stand isn't even ready yet!

 

[yveterinarian]

Coming along very nicely. Your new basement plans are a much more effective use of the space and will look great when done. If you haven't already, you should check out your local ReStore. They have fabulous deals on things like bathroom vanities, sinks, faucets, toilets, light fixtures etc. I recently bought a beautiful corner tub with the fixtures still in place in pristine condition for $145.00! Which, of course, sparked my new renovation of our bathroom.

 

[curiousphil]

It's funny that you mention that - a coworker made the same suggestion yesterday!! The nearest restore is actually just around the corner from us so I will definitely be checking it out. Have been in there a couple times before with my father and sometimes it has some good steals.

I am very excited to be moving into the next stage of the renovation, construction. Unfortunately though, this stage will move much slower than the demolition, as we will be limited by funds. A burst of work here, a burst of work there. I'm going to break the project up into phases.

Phase 1 - construct the storage area and consolidate our mess into this area. We did a decent amount of purging but found that we still have some things which require further decisions ie whose pots and pans should we keep?

Phase 2 - build the aquarium. Concurrently with Phase 1 I will be slowly building the new aquarium in place while the whole rec room side of the basement is empty. I hope to have it fully running by the end of the year but it might end up being sometime in January. The tank will be moving into place whenever the stand is ready and I have the pond liner layed down. Once in place, I'll install the plumbing and do a wet test. Then I will fill it with sand and let it cycle. I want to use seaflor special grade sand, throw in a couple of my rocks that don't have corals encrusted onto them, and allow it to go through a proper cycle before moving any other livestock in. While it is going through that process I will build the lighting rack and ventilation system. I plan to make the lighting rack out of square aluminum bars and hang it from the ceiling with airline cable that will be reeled into a winch, which will allow me to raise and lower it with ease.

Phase 3 is building the rec room amd fish room around the tank.

Phase 4 is the spare room.

Phase 5 is the bathroom. I may make this phase 4, not sure yet. It's way down the road

 

[Big_Als_London]

Make sure that if you are building a bedroom downstairs that that window is of right size. I think it has to be something like 3'x18" tall or something like that.

 

[curiousphil]

Make sure that if you are building a bedroom downstairs that that window is of right size. I think it has to be something like 3'x18" tall or something like that.

That is the exact size of the windows we have in the basement . I will double check the building code before we officially dub it a bedroom. It may end up being a craft room, office, or (gasp) play room for when we have kids.

 

[Poseidon]

Haha kids?!? No more money for corals then lol
And yea, reason for basement windows being that way is a fire man needs to be able to crawl in with a tank on his back

 

[curiousphil]

Haha kids?!? No more money for corals then lol
And yea, reason for basement windows being that way is a fire man needs to be able to crawl in with a tank on his back

Lol, if everything goes to plan I will be done buying corals and just growing them by the time kids arrive .

This happened tonight:

Tank coming next Wednesday when the "big guys" are scheduled to work

 

[Big_Als_London]

Lol, if everything goes to plan I will be done buying corals and just growing them by the time kids arrive .

This happened tonight:

Tank coming next Wednesday when the "big guys" are scheduled to work

Its too bad I have a bum shoulder and will be doing physio...

 

[curiousphil]

Its too bad I have a bum shoulder and will be doing physio...

Convenient... lol! If serious though sorry to hear, take care. I'm sure we can handle it without you.

 

[Big_Als_London]

I actually go on Friday for my appointment at the fowler clinic. It only hurts when I lift over my head and when I throw a baseball. As long as I don't have to lift the tank over my head or have to throw it I should be fine.

 

[curiousphil]

I visited the tank last night and was pleasantly surprised to discover a feature that I wasn't expecting at all!! There is a piece of black acrylic fixed to the back wall that has teeth which cover the overflow holes. I was slightly concerned about how I was going to make the back of the tank black with the external overflow box being siliconed on as it is. This solves my conundrum perfectly .

 

[Poseidon]

always nice to find such pleasant surprises... your going to put the tank and stand in place correct? so you dont have to move anymore atal?

 

[jroovers]

Looks like you are making progress and have thought stuff out pretty soundly! New tank arriving in days, you must not be able to sleep at night.

 

[curiousphil]

always nice to find such pleasant surprises... your going to put the tank and stand in place correct? so you dont have to move anymore atal?

Correct!!! Hoping to put It in place and leave it there until I either sell the house or die. Go go 40 year reef!!!

Looks like you are making progress and have thought stuff out pretty soundly! New tank arriving in days, you must not be able to sleep at night.

It's tough, that's for sure . I find myself counting aquarium parts (rather than sheep lol) trying to think of anything I have forgotten. I *think* I will have everything I need to start it up. My "want" list is big but most of those things are luxuries... such as an Apex and Gyre pumps.
Doing my wet test might be tricky though as I only have 1 return pump. So I will have to steal the mag drive off of my 90 for short periods.

 

[jroovers]

Lol the "want" list is substantially larger than the "have" list for most (if not all) of us reefers... you've got a new, very large upgrade tank, so you are definitely on the right track!

 

[teebone110]

I visited the tank last night and was pleasantly surprised to discover a feature that I wasn't expecting at all!! There is a piece of black acrylic fixed to the back wall that has teeth which cover the overflow holes. I was slightly concerned about how I was going to make the back of the tank black with the external overflow box being siliconed on as it is. This solves my conundrum perfectly .

She's a beaut.. I saw it as well this week while I was in the store

 

[J_T]

Skimming through, your plan for the vents.

Just use one fan to exhaust. It will draw air in on its own. No need to pull it in.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[curiousphil]

Skimming through, your plan for the vents.

Just use one fan to exhaust. It will draw air in on its own. No need to pull it in.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Great info, thanks

 

[curiousphil]

Picked up a couple of things for the new tank today:

(kitty says "Oooooooh shiny! For me??")