The fish room is being implemented in phases.
Phase 1: enclose most of a garage car bay to create a 16' x 12' area. Move the old 750gal acrylic tank and use it during construction to house both its livestock and the livestock from our 205 reef. Relocate about 600lbs of live rock to rubbermaid buckets to make room in the 750.
Phase 2: extend phase 1 with a 23' x 8' space directly under the new display tank. This room will house the sump, skimmer, reactors, and reservoirs for R/O and saltwater.
Phase 3: tear out the 750, then populate that space with quarantine tanks, sink, lab desk, 12' wall of cabinetry for supplies.
I have a few key requirements in mind for the fish room, mostly the result of lessons learned with our previous tanks:
1.Easy access to all equipment - spread things out and keep them on a single level as much as possible. I learned with the 750 and 205 that having things too packed together makes maintenance difficult, and maintenance that is difficult doesn’t get done as often as it should. When I do have to stack some things like the quarantine tanks I will leave 2' or more of clearance between the top of one tank and the bottom of the next.
2. Complete humidity control - Humidity control for our 750 was a high CFM exhaust fan and supplemental window A/C. This was sufficient to prevent actual rot of drywall or mold, but the salt air still caused exposed metal anywhere in the house to rust: most notably the A/C registers even in the far back upstairs bedroom, and the strings on the grand piano 30 feet away from the tank. The new fish room and display tank canopy share no airspace with the house, have a dedicated 3-ton multi-zone A/C, and a dehumidifier separate from the A/C.
3. Tons of storage - With our previous setup, ‘fish stuff’ quickly overflowed the 6’ x 14’ fish room to take over 2 cabinets in the butler pantry, 2 cabinets in the kitchen, 3 in the utility room. Then progressed on to fill a 6 foot storage cabinet on the back deck, and several shelves in the garage. No, I didn’t really need everything I was keeping, but I did need a lot of it. For the new room I’m hoping that a 12' wall of floor to ceiling, 30" deep cabinets plus a couple of hanging cabinets over the sink will let me keep everything contained to one space.
4. Better Salt Mixing Solution - Our previous fish room had a 7' tall reservoir for mixing salt. Every water change entailed hauling a 60-odd pound bucket of salt up a stepladder then trying to carefully pour the contents of the 12" diameter bucket into an 8" opening. I really don't want to do this twice a week for the life of the new tank. Still working on my solution for this requirement.
Now on to pictures...
Plan view of fish room
Early draft of room layout
Some people use SketchUp equipment and plumbing layout. I prefer "CutUp" (TM). The plan shown here is a bit out of sync with my latest thinking. One slight disadvantage of CutUp is that it isn't quite as easy to back up your work, and I had a rather severe data loss incident in the form of a cat deciding to shred my work.
