[rlederer]

Hi. I'm new here. I'm in the process of building a 12x18 foot freshwater tropical fish house and would appreciate any input from those of you with fish house experience. I raised lots of tropical fish when I was in high school and now that I am retired and have a bit of money I want to get back into it. Things have changed a lot since I last raised fish so I'm looking for advice. Thanks. Roger

[willow]

hello and welcome.
i hope you're able to find the answers you need.

[Romad]

Hi Roger welcome to TFK

If you haven't checked out the DIY part of the forum yet it's a great place to start. This link will take you to it. Good luck and I look forward to your progress.

DIY Aquarium

[aunt kymmie]

Hi Roger, welcome to TFK! I so envy you being retired and now being able to have fun and pursue such endeavors. Please post your own build thread so we can follow along with your progress. Pictures are also always enjoyed and appreciated.

[rlederer]

Right now all I have is the cement foundation; framing starts next week. It will be next fall before I actually get fish. Being on well water, I'll have some hard water fish but I also want to use an RO unit so I can have soft water fish as well.
I'd like suggestions as to:
1. What kind of RO unit I should get?
2. I need suggestions on shelves. The ones I have seen are not very attractive and DIY wood shelves seem too heavy duty.
3. I haven't been able to find information as to how big a wet/dry filter/sump needs to be to accommodate x gallons of water. Is there a chart or formula? Same question regarding the pump.
4. I plan on having two storage tanks of water, of 50-100 gallons. Since the fish house will be heated, the water for water changes will be readily available. Any suggestions as to type of tanks and where to get them?
Thanks, all. Roger

[fish joey]

Welcome to TFK..I have beem retired a year its GREAT!!!!!!

[fish joey]

Been ..spelling not as important these days..LOL

[zof]

Welcome to TFK and congrats on retirement!

This fish room of yours, is it going to just be a nice sanctuary to relax and enjoy your fish? Or you thinking floor to ceiling fish? What kind of fish are you looking into?

As for wet dry and sumps, there really is not a big formula for picking one out it mainly depends on how much filtering material you will use, how much extra water volume you are looking for and what your intake and output between your sump and the tank will be to account for drainage from the display when power goes out. At least from the freshwater side of things. A good starting point but not a rule is the sump being at least 20% volume as the display tank.

Looking forward to seeing the progress of your fish room!

[rlederer]

Thanks for the info. I'm looking at 15-20 tanks. It will be a nice sanctuary. (If my wife gets mad at me I'll be in the fish house instead of the dog house.) But it will also be a bit of work, I realize. I'm putting a lot of money into this project so I want to do it right. No interesting photos to show yet as only the cement foundation is done. Framing starts tomorrow.

[zof]

Well if you don't mind a more crude urban look then look into cinder blocks and 2x4's (or 4x4s if you get really large tanks) the benefit to this type setup is its completely customizable and easy to reconfigure if you decide to grow down the line plus really cheap. And the only carpentry involved would be cutting the wood to the correct length that you want the shelf. And if your looking into efficiency rather than cosmetics a top drain sump system would work great with that shelving. Basically that means a sump at the bottom with 2-3 tanks above it, so the pump pumps the water to the top tank which then over flows the water from that tank into a drain pipe that leads to the next lower tank, and continues into the sump. In fact you can probably even put 4-6 tanks per sump in that setup with a large enough sump, just get a separate pump to each set of tanks. This way you will only need 1 really large heater instead of 4-6 smaller ones and when you only have to do 1 water change to cover all 4-6 tanks. The down side to a multiple tank sump system is you really have to make sure all new arrivals are quarantined in separate tank for 1-2 months to make sure they aren't carrying anything that could get to your other fish.

Let me know if you want more info or if you are looking for a more elegant solution I love stuff like this and one day when I get a garage I will have my own!