My fish room renovation project

I've finally taken the time to upload all my photos to an album on photo bucket but I don't know how to inbed them all nice. How do you do that?

Here is a tease of my future post:

http://s1217.photobucket.com/albums/dd396/kamikaziechameleon/

EDIT: So once I know how to imbed then I'll edit this post to tell the DIY story I want it to tell.

how do I resize them? This is all new to me sorry.

Testing :



Edit, I like this size views very well on my screen and doesn't require scrolling.

Ok for some reason I can no longer edit the original post. So I'm just gonna start, here it goes...

So January 2010 I moved home from school. My sister had taken over my room since I left and I was told the basement was to be mine. The issue being one entire side of our foundation(basement wall) had caved in 6 inches and torn free of the sill plate attaching it to the house. So I had the pleasure of prepping it. I tore down the old studding and removed the patio and part of the deck in preparation for a crew to come in and do what they do best. My dad was working full time but he helped where and when he could.









Took me about a month of free time to do all the prep work (rearranging the space to accommodate the work and then prepping, demolition and clean up)

So then this company called ram jack came in and did some awesome work in about 2.5 days they had done all this goodness :









So what they are doing is digging a trench outside the foundation wall and setting anchors out into the yard then pulling/pushing the wall back out. They layed a new drain tile and a membrane on the outside of the foundation to prevent water touching the concrete so it can't get through the cracks.

Then they put these on to hold everything in place :









When they where done this is what the yard looked like:



Then we got to studding that wall and putting in new electrical (Electrical was exclusively my dad, I'm a little intimidated by that)





If you where wondering who the bald guy in all the pictures is, he's my dad. I'm the foolish looking kid of the left:



While working the basement was a bit of a mess :



We decided to expande the basement into our storage room :



From inside what would become my actual bedroom:



Then I forgot to take pictures for a month or two and it ended up like this :





Don't worry this is the beginning to a awesome story. Next up, acquiring 11 aquariums, 500 gallons worth of tank.

I had finished rebuilding the basement. I had moved into it and finally finished unpacking and then the first flood that hit Chicago last summer came the exact day after I finished moving into the basement. I actually punctured a tire driving home on a branch and made it still. We got between 4-6 inches in our basement when the two sumps backed up and overflowed when the power was out. I took 2 days off work and cleared my stuff out in a furious rage till it all dried, we didn't end up tearing out the dry wall actually the water was only in there for about 4 hours till we got a generator and pumped it dry. We got a decent dehumidifier in there and it recovered fine. 2 weeks later I was back in the basement. At this time I had finished setting up my 110 tall from school and my 40 gallon planted tank. I was thinking that I might try breeding my first fish seeing as tanks where at an all time low on craigs list and other places. I mentioned this to my friend joe who had just picked up a mint condition 125 gallon tank for 70 bucks. He said he new a guy who's dad had died. He used to breed cichlids and was looking to offload the tanks for a decently low price. He proposed we go in on a gaint breeder setup (he had breed mbuna and other malawi cichlids back in middle/high-school)

We got 11 tanks 2-100 gallon tanks, 1-40 gallon tank, 6-20 gallon tanks, 1-50 gallon tank, 1-30 gallon breeder for a very fair price. Almost 500 gallons of tank for 400 dollars in addition to a 110 I had, a 40 I had, a 30 gallon acrylic hex I had and some more tanks tanks my friend had, a 40 gallon tall, and a 40 gallon hex. Another friend I play cards with on Tuesdays donated his old 40 gallon breeder that he used as a reef tank. I also had two 15 gallon tall tanks. Heres some more pictures of stuff:







My former planted tank:





So there was a trade show that I went to with my buddy and we ended up acquiring about 100 cichlids for 200 bucks, not a bad average. That was early last fall and we've only lost 6 fish from that total. considering they where all fry we didn't do to bad. Probably my best cichlid survival rate ever.

We had cycled all the odd tanks, planning to build stands to stack all the doubles. Sorry I don't have many pictures of this part because it was a total mess but it was kinda fun too.

Thick skin and compressicep fry:



Some more pictures of mess and unassembled stands:









To be continued.

So we built the stands out of pine stained it and assembled it with some flippin awesome lag bolts a friend got me for a deal. The designs are finished, the top tank will have a canopy of sorts above it but we didn't build it because a revelation late in this project that I might move soon came up. We continued working on one it but put certain parts off till we would see the tanks final resting place.

This is the first picture of the fish corner :



That was two 100 gallon long (6ft) tanks and 2 40 gallon breeder tanks. You may notice the tanks on top and bottom have the same water level as the one next to them. This was because we had intended on running them and the 6 20 gallon tanks on one unifies sump system. We even bought all the fittings and parts to do it but once we realized in 6 -12 months I'd be moved we decided not to throw away hundreds of dollars in pvc fittings and make do with old OTB and canister filters (note that some of the filters in use are old! from when I was in grade school so almost 20 years old but most are 4-10 years old with 2 new OTB acquired for this project to work) :



Here is a picture of the 20 gallon stands we didn't have enough spare filters/heaters from years gone buy to set them up so they are on the stand in what is left of the storage room by the furnace:



Once we had those tanks setup we retired the odds and ends that had formerly occupied my bedroom corner and kept me up with noise all night:



Ok next up a break down of what the basement looks like now and the fish I've got.

Ok this story isn't over but this project is. I will start a new thread when I move and things expand and transform but this is what I've accomplished. Here is my basement/room from all 4 corners.

Coming down the stares you see:



Turning left you see this(I designed and built the desk its a 5x7 corner desk in years past with inset drafting surface on some hefele scissor hinges. Materials are sugar maple for the base and the top is a laminated combo of Baltic birch and red oak. And yes those are all video games, mostly pc, its a sickness. and that tower is a custom build I finished last Christmas. That 50 gallon tank is housing my Columbian red tailed boa.):



Walking to the right and looking across to the left back towards my bedroom you'll see this while standing in front of the LG 60PK550:



Walking to the back right corner and standing by my desk looking towards my bed room you'll see this(the bed frame was another project.):





Looking back at the entrance from that corner you'll see all the big tanks (the 110 tall stand is a design and construction of my own from years past. Its ipe wood aka iron wood and then the lighter wood is Baltic Birch plywood I'm still not sure if I like the contrast or not. I might just stain the ply wood to match after the move. The 100s and 40s have their backs painted black):



Then walking toward my bed room and looking diagonally back at the TV area you'll see this(TV stand is my design and construction, made of finished pine stained by my sisters and mom, not a color I would have chosen but it works well with electronics.):



Next up a break down of the tanks and some of their inhabitants.