Poomba
09/08/2011, 03:51 PM
As I plan on making this into a tank journal, I feel like I should give a little back ground to this plan.
I am in the military and have a job where I deploy pretty much every year. Its not nice for the money, but not nice for having a salt water aquarium. However, I have an amazing wife who has learned how to take care of the tank, and as a result, I can keep it.
She and I however, want to automate it as much as possible. We had originally planned on moving into an apartment, where I would have had a 4 foot by 4 foot closet to fit all of my automation equipment in. Now however, we are blessed to be moving into a home all of our own. At first I thought I could use a closet or two to store water tanks for auto water exchanges, maybe even a refrigerated auto feeder like RC "tank of the month" winner Uhuru.
Then I saw this room,
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f6/JaredCSmith/811-19.jpg
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f6/JaredCSmith/811-20.jpg
While it might be hard to tell from the pictures, that is a single car garage that was closed in and finished, with water hook ups in the back.
PERFECT for a fish room I said to myself.
So using the excuse of keeping the "Weed growing lights" as my wife refers to them, out of the living area; and automating the system better, I got the ok to turn that room into a Man-Fish Cave!
The plan is right now: to move my 75 softy reef in there, put in large RO/DI and saltwater vats, add two qt tanks, install a stock tank for a massive sump, and add both a frag tank and a 60 gallon-ish SPS tank to the system.
The auto water exchange is pretty much figured out. I am going to put a y valve on the washer hookup, and then run the water into my RO/DI, then pump it in to the next tank over where it will be made up into saltwater for the tank. Then a litermeter will pump it into the sump, and the remote pump module will then pump the old tank water down the washer waste water hook up. Still need to figure out how to plumb that part though... probably will just tap the waste water pipe and thread a john guest fitting onto it for the litermeter tubing.
Im looking at using this for water storage:
http://www.plastic-mart.com/item.aspx?id=456165 gallon water tank (http://www.plastic-mart.com/item.aspx?id=456)
The whole system is going to be controlled by an Apex that I already have, but am waiting for the move to hook up.
This question I have right now, is what to replace the carpeting with. Its on top of a foam pad, on top of the original concrete flooring. I want something that looks nice, as I dont want to do anything that will make my wife question her sanity for letting me do this. What about doing a laminate wood floor product or a vinyl flooring product through someone like lumber liquidators?
I was looking at this Tranquility 4mm St Cloud Mahogany Click Resilient Vinyl (http://www.lumberliquidators.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=18991). My main concerns is how the product deals with water damage.
In the next week or two I will take better pictures of the equipment and area, and most of the stuff should be up with in the month.
Thanks for reading!
I am in the military and have a job where I deploy pretty much every year. Its not nice for the money, but not nice for having a salt water aquarium. However, I have an amazing wife who has learned how to take care of the tank, and as a result, I can keep it.
She and I however, want to automate it as much as possible. We had originally planned on moving into an apartment, where I would have had a 4 foot by 4 foot closet to fit all of my automation equipment in. Now however, we are blessed to be moving into a home all of our own. At first I thought I could use a closet or two to store water tanks for auto water exchanges, maybe even a refrigerated auto feeder like RC "tank of the month" winner Uhuru.
Then I saw this room,
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f6/JaredCSmith/811-19.jpg
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f6/JaredCSmith/811-20.jpg
While it might be hard to tell from the pictures, that is a single car garage that was closed in and finished, with water hook ups in the back.
PERFECT for a fish room I said to myself.
So using the excuse of keeping the "Weed growing lights" as my wife refers to them, out of the living area; and automating the system better, I got the ok to turn that room into a Man-Fish Cave!
The plan is right now: to move my 75 softy reef in there, put in large RO/DI and saltwater vats, add two qt tanks, install a stock tank for a massive sump, and add both a frag tank and a 60 gallon-ish SPS tank to the system.
The auto water exchange is pretty much figured out. I am going to put a y valve on the washer hookup, and then run the water into my RO/DI, then pump it in to the next tank over where it will be made up into saltwater for the tank. Then a litermeter will pump it into the sump, and the remote pump module will then pump the old tank water down the washer waste water hook up. Still need to figure out how to plumb that part though... probably will just tap the waste water pipe and thread a john guest fitting onto it for the litermeter tubing.
Im looking at using this for water storage:
http://www.plastic-mart.com/item.aspx?id=456165 gallon water tank (http://www.plastic-mart.com/item.aspx?id=456)
The whole system is going to be controlled by an Apex that I already have, but am waiting for the move to hook up.
This question I have right now, is what to replace the carpeting with. Its on top of a foam pad, on top of the original concrete flooring. I want something that looks nice, as I dont want to do anything that will make my wife question her sanity for letting me do this. What about doing a laminate wood floor product or a vinyl flooring product through someone like lumber liquidators?
I was looking at this Tranquility 4mm St Cloud Mahogany Click Resilient Vinyl (http://www.lumberliquidators.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=18991). My main concerns is how the product deals with water damage.
In the next week or two I will take better pictures of the equipment and area, and most of the stuff should be up with in the month.
Thanks for reading!