New / Revised fish room starting soon.

I think I just lost my mind driving back from Natal to Gauteng Thursday night.

We have quite a few tanks running in an outside room and peak 3kwh loads in the fish room on a cool day. One side of the room is completely open and I know that will pretty much be the constant load during the winter so I thought.

Close up the opening, Insulate the roof, get an Aircon in there and do room heating instead of seperate tank heating. Regulate the temp at 26-27 and add a heater only for fish you want to keep at a higher temp.

New shelves, a lot more tanks, new lightning and a proper air line system through the room.

All this as if I dont have enough to keep me busy with. Just had someone here to assist with closing up the hole in a fairly artistic manner. I plan to use a little bit of brick work combined with old vintage wooden doors and hope that it would at least look somewhat interesting. Work should start this week while i would be on a business trip, and the rest I will do on weekends when I am not traveling.

Hole to be closed in picture below.



I just hope my plan works and that i would at least save 2/3 of my current power consumption for this room.

 

Get crackin.

 

that sounds exciting!

 

This project turned serious quickly. Last weeks rain kept the builders away and this week I came across a complete fishroom up for sale. Someone leaving the hobby and we made a deal. I truly have no idea how i am going to fit all the new tanks, but the deal was so good i could not leave it. 90 extra tanks, stands, heaters, lights and and and. An exceptionally well designed and well thought through fishroom. Immaculate condition and supper clean.

 

It's great when a plan comes together. How many tanks in total and what fish are you planning to keep? Also is the fish room mainly for breeding or show?

 

The room will mainly be for breeding. So far we have a few pure strain guppies, 3 spot gourami's, blue polar parrots and shrimp colonies breeding. We are adding a few species and will take over active breeding pairs form the seller as well. I have also bought L201 Snowballs to breed with and plan a few more of the L plecos. Also waiting for another import of shrimp to land.

We will now have too many tanks for this room, the others will go into phase two of the project and be used for cold water fish. Still planning this.

 

We will sell off some of the old equipment and will have over 100 heaters to get rid of. Will also sell of some tanks in the process, but dont have totals right now.

 

Discovered zebra plecos for the first time on YT yesterday, and then discovered the price today. Do you know if there are any shops selling Otto's?

 

First layout plans. Can't accommodate all the tanks for now, but hope to get a cold water setup going as well with some of the unused tanks.

 

You missed a spot.

 

Man, this is proving to be a lot harder than expected. The rains last month kept the builder away for three weeks and then I had to learn that he is only available two days a week, Thursdays and Sundays. I decided to use a retired architect/building inspector to monitor the little building project and relied on him for the builder not knowing its a part time builder. Because I believe in not going back on my word, I am now stuck with the situation and would have to patiently wait this out. Silently very frustrated, i contemplated getting someone else in to come and complete the work so that the moving of the tanks can continue. As space becomes available, i move a rack and a few tanks from the seller. The first 26 tanks is in place and almost cycled enough to take fish this weekend. Moving the fish will then free up more stands with tanks to be moved. We will continue this till all the tanks is in place.

Today we will build a new rack for our existing tanks to get them out of the way. Tomorrow we should install the 50 mm air line ring feed, then all the walls are open for a quick paint job. Aircon arrived last night, so need to find th time to install that as well.

We ended up buying all the live stock as well. 7 active Angle breeding pairs, 3 active Kribensis (Rainbow Krib) breeding pairs and roughly 1600 of their fry/young of different ages.

After spending a lot of time with the retiring breeder in his fish room, I totally redesigned my fish room as he pointed out ways to layer tanks and adding my existing tanks on top of his tanks to reduce stands and consequently save on floor space. Although this design looks like less, it will hold 116 tanks when done.

 

Where did I put my glasses? I could have sworn you wrote 116 tanks.

 

Epic! Keep on going! Going to be so cool!

 

Last night @22H30 I was done installing the aircon and switched it on as a test. I set the aircon at 26degreeC and dropped my temperature control on all my existing heaters to 25degC as a backup should my aircon plan not work. To explain this a little bit better. I took my plan to 2 different Refrigeration company's and asked them what I should use to do central heating in the new fish room and they recommended a minimum of 36000 BTU. I did not agree as the size of the room requires a 18000BTU.

I am currently waiting for the manufacturing of High density insulation panels for the roof area as well as all the glass areas on my sliding doors. In theory insulating a room would result in a smaller aircon requirement. I had a 12000btu available for use and decided to test it before I spend any more money and with the recommendation of the experts in the back of my mind i started doubting myself. Went to bed at 23H30 and woke up just after 4 this morning to find this. Please keep in mind the insulation is not even in place yet. I was pleasantly surprised. I removed the temperature probe from Tank 11 to hang in the air and indicate the room temperature for this test. Now to see how this system will react to the addition of the insulation as well as the 80 or so outstanding tanks. (Something wrong with the Tank 7 tank as it is indicating a lower temp and not fluctuating at all)

 

Some feedback on the progres. First 47 Tanks is in, ringfeed airline is in place with a Resun LP200 air pump capable of delivering 250l/m at 0.42 bar. New Electrical DB in the process of being wired and the insulation of the doors and ceiling area is 95% done. The aircon proves to be a huge success with my top tanks running temperatures of 26.5-27deg and the bottom tanks between 24.5-25deg.

It is still very rough in there with all the tools and wires and ladders and temporarily supported racks but we are moving in the right direction.

Currently 6 active Angle breeding pairs, appr 300 angle fry from different ages and batches. Koi Guppies, Dumbo Ears, and 3 more Pure strain guppies, Endlers (All Breading), 90+Three Spot Gourami fry ready to sell, 93 Blue polar Parrot fry ready to sell, Polar Parrot breeding stock. Four different Shrimp colonies (Breeding) and lastly, Mexican Dwarf
Crayfish breeding colony.

Two L-pleco species bought with plans to breed them but they will only be in here in the next two weeks.

10 More tanks still outside and another 19 tanks will be moved next weekend.

 

Living the dream!