Need help to start my new DIY plywood tank. 1,053 to 2,106 gallons

Hey everyone,
I have been talking this over with my wife and i wanted to include a few pics to let everyone see what i will be starting with.
I will have to build a room on the outside of my house because i already built a wall in the livingroom to put my 225 in wall with a stone surround.
So here is what i want to do. In the picture you see the 4 windows in the wall in the livingroom. I want to remove them and use that space as the viewing section of the tank. In the outside picture that is the space i can build the room. The windows if removed will give me an opening of roughly 13' 3" give or take a little. The space outside i have about 25'x25' to work with. I know i will start out with a 6" reinforced concrete slab for the floor. If you go from finished floor to the bottom of the window opening the stand will have to be almost 3' high. The tank size is still open for debate. I will give you my options.
1. 13'x4'x3' 1,053 gallons
2. 13'x6'x3' 1,580 gallons
3. 13,x8'x3' 2106 gallons

I will have between 3-4 feet between the top of the tank and finished ceiling height roughly? this is on paper of coarse.
I was thinking i need the tank width plus filter room width plus working room. I have a maximum of 25' for everything.
even if i go 8' for the tank i was thinking mabey 4' width room for the filters and another 8' or so for working room behind the filters. So a 25'x20' room?
What do you think?????
Any input will help. Once i start this there is no turning back. I will also discuss tank construction in my circumstances if anyone is willing to chime in.
Thanks in advance
Ron.

I took 2 more pics to show the only indoors way to get into the filtration room. If not i have to go outside to get in. This would be o.k unless its bad weather so the other 2 options are the wall in the filtration room behind the rock wall with the 225 or the space between that wall and where i want to put the new tank. I'm leaning twards the filter room so the door is not visible.????

anarekist said:

sounds really cool. i hope someone with more exp will chime in.

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yeah me 2.. I have been waiting a long time to start this and still have a ways to go before i can start. I need to finish the rock wall and i have a fence outside to put up.
I also have the upstairs to start for my wife. But just the go ahead to do the project was cool. I have the 225 but everyday it seems smaller and smaller..lol
There are some really good builds on here and i have read most of them all with different ideas and situations and areas that can be used to build thier dream tank. due to my land i was unable to build my house on a basement so the add on is all i can do. someone will come up with something for me I'm sure of it.

ANYONE.....LOL

I was thinking of using pond armor and 3/4 starfire glass for viewing windows. Prob 2 6' windows 36" tall and framed so the glass is close to my inside living room wall.

Ocean Railroader said:

I once thought of a idea like this and always thought it would be a good idea to add a fish room on to the side of a existing house by building it in it's own room. I think if you are going to build a fish tank this large and build it's own room for it. It would be safer and cheaper to build it out of cinder blocks or pored cement so that it's more soild and won't leak under all that water pressure.

Here is a drawing of what I was going to do once I got a house for myself

This is why my fish room which houses a 5000 gallon cement tank would look like on the side of a regular house.

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Well the good thing is if it leaks it will be outside the main house unless the window leaks..plus the floor will be concrete and slightly angled to the floor drains and away from the foundation. I'm not sure of the cost difference considering concrete will still need to be sealed and you will need a whole lot of rebar plus core fill the blocks to be safe. it would probably cost ALOT more.

stempy said:

I would also look into the concrete builds on here. If it was me and I was literally building a room to house a fish tank I would go as big as I could go, the 13x8x3 you mentioned use a 1" thick sheet of acrylic for the viewing window and coat the concrete in Max ACR - it's what i used after seeing people having so many issues with applying the pond armor due to its incredible thickness and i couldn't be happier, it was like using a thickened paint, basically reminded me of thin pancake syrup There is a thread on here of a guy doing just what you plan to, cept he already had a 4000 gallon fiberglass tank he used. Also look up Pacu mom, she has an epic build where they added on to their house for a massive tank for their pet pacus

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...-tank-1-000-gallon-tank-many-others-and-ponds
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/group.php?discussionid=497&pp=10&do=discuss

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I read both of those but i am not really up with the max ACR? where do you buy this product and how much does it cost? I could possibly even make it longer but i would have to cut out a little more space past the raw window openings. This should not be to much of a problem considering i already have to take the siding off that part of the house anyway. I would really like to use( 3) 6' viewing windows . This would bring the tank to about 3,078 gallons. I think this is about all i want to go even if i had to build the whole room to house the tank. all good options...I hope alot of the plywood builders chime in to give thier 2 cents as well.