Awkward Room, Thoughts?

[Yoimbrian]

Hi all !!!

I've had a few tanks over the years, currently all I have set up though is a 20 gallon with a ~9 year old clown pleco (the other fish in with him died over the years...I'm amazed the little guy has lived so long honestly).

Anyhow, my basement is super weird, and the section of it I want to use for the aquarium is super super weird. A few years ago I set up a corner aquarium in this spot, and I hated the aquarium (it was a corner trapezoid and tall, so really hard to clean, weird water flow, and the fish didn't really use the space), and then some crap happened in life so I ended up selling the fish and the tank. Last time I bought that tank because it was cheap on Craigslist (I'm in Minnesota, its not like California here with lots of good used options), this time I am thinking of having a fully custom tank built.

So the layout of the bedroom is L shaped, and I want to use the small leg of the L. At the end of the leg there is a folding accordion door (that I'll remove) and behind that door is a awkward room / hallway thing that leads to my bomb shelter (yes, I have a bomb shelter, 4" thick sliding concrete door and the works). In theory I could put the aquarium inside of the closet, or on the wall where the desk is pictured, but I really like the idea of having good access to all sides of the aquarium for ease of cleaning, so the obvious place to put it is right where the accordion door is now to be a room divider of sorts.

The main placement question is actually how far it should jut into the bedroom. Having it flush with the wall line would look the cleanest, but give me the least room and I'd probably need to go with a smaller tank. My default would be to have it stick out ~10" (as shown in picture) to add more room. The complicated thing here is the desk I am planning would be a standing desk that fits perfectly against that wall, so you would be far enough back from the aquarium to see the main face, but you'd also have a view at the corner, and it may just look weird (the sitting position would be about 2 feet back from the corner, assuming a 30" deep desk). I could of course have the desk face the bigger wall, but then the aquarium would be behind me and I couldn't see it well while working (same for a corner desk, the only way I think I can get a good view while working / gaming would be to have the desk straight against the little section of wall).

For the aquarium itself I really like the idea of doing an internal filter, like the Uniquarium's that Clear for Life makes. But I would do a bigger filter than they do, and I would do K1 media instead of bio balls. So basically the water would overflow on the left side to stacked Poret Foam that would act as a pre-filter (I hate filter bags, but if people scream loud enough you may convince me), then it would go into a large fluidized K1 section as the primary filter, and then a bubble trap, and return pump (and an area with the return pump to put bags of media or ceramic rings or something if needed). Will do more detailed analysis of the internal filter once other decisions are made. There are a few reasons I like the internal filter concept:

-Stands are expensive, and I'm not terribly handy to make one, but if I don't need a sump I can just build a cinderblock stand for $50 in 5 minutes. This may be the least important reason though.
-I hate working under stands, horrible access under there and super awkward.
-I am REALLY trying to limit energy use. For heat loss one larger aquarium will lose less heat than a smaller aquarium + sump of same volume (way less surface area), which could save quite a lot of electricity. Additionally, for the return pump I'll only need to supply like ~6 inches of head pressure instead of like 6 feet, which will also save quite a bit of electricity.

Tank plan would be discus and decorated with driftwood and rocks.

Let me know your thoughts on where you'd put the tank, and if anyone else has built a Uniquarium style tank before (or bought that brand).

 

[SilverArowanaBoi]

Hi all !!!

I've had a few tanks over the years, currently all I have set up though is a 20 gallon with a ~9 year old clown pleco (the other fish in with him died over the years...I'm amazed the little guy has lived so long honestly).

Anyhow, my basement is super weird, and the section of it I want to use for the aquarium is super super weird. A few years ago I set up a corner aquarium in this spot, and I hated the aquarium (it was a corner trapezoid and tall, so really hard to clean, weird water flow, and the fish didn't really use the space), and then some crap happened in life so I ended up selling the fish and the tank. Last time I bought that tank because it was cheap on Craigslist (I'm in Minnesota, its not like California here with lots of good used options), this time I am thinking of having a fully custom tank built.

So the layout of the bedroom is L shaped, and I want to use the small leg of the L. At the end of the leg there is a folding accordion door (that I'll remove) and behind that door is a awkward room / hallway thing that leads to my bomb shelter (yes, I have a bomb shelter, 4" thick sliding concrete door and the works). In theory I could put the aquarium inside of the closet, or on the wall where the desk is pictured, but I really like the idea of having good access to all sides of the aquarium for ease of cleaning, so the obvious place to put it is right where the accordion door is now to be a room divider of sorts.

The main placement question is actually how far it should jut into the bedroom. Having it flush with the wall line would look the cleanest, but give me the least room and I'd probably need to go with a smaller tank. My default would be to have it stick out ~10" (as shown in picture) to add more room. The complicated thing here is the desk I am planning would be a standing desk that fits perfectly against that wall, so you would be far enough back from the aquarium to see the main face, but you'd also have a view at the corner, and it may just look weird (the sitting position would be about 2 feet back from the corner, assuming a 30" deep desk). I could of course have the desk face the bigger wall, but then the aquarium would be behind me and I couldn't see it well while working (same for a corner desk, the only way I think I can get a good view while working / gaming would be to have the desk straight against the little section of wall).

For the aquarium itself I really like the idea of doing an internal filter, like the Uniquarium's that Clear for Life makes. But I would do a bigger filter than they do, and I would do K1 media instead of bio balls. So basically the water would overflow on the left side to stacked Poret Foam that would act as a pre-filter (I hate filter bags, but if people scream loud enough you may convince me), then it would go into a large fluidized K1 section as the primary filter, and then a bubble trap, and return pump (and an area with the return pump to put bags of media or ceramic rings or something if needed). Will do more detailed analysis of the internal filter once other decisions are made. There are a few reasons I like the internal filter concept:

-Stands are expensive, and I'm not terribly handy to make one, but if I don't need a sump I can just build a cinderblock stand for $50 in 5 minutes. This may be the least important reason though.
-I hate working under stands, horrible access under there and super awkward.
-I am REALLY trying to limit energy use. For heat loss one larger aquarium will lose less heat than a smaller aquarium + sump of same volume (way less surface area), which could save quite a lot of electricity. Additionally, for the return pump I'll only need to supply like ~6 inches of head pressure instead of like 6 feet, which will also save quite a bit of electricity.

Tank plan would be discus and decorated with driftwood and rocks.

Let me know your thoughts on where you'd put the tank, and if anyone else has built a Uniquarium style tank before (or bought that brand).

View attachment 1534010

Yes, as you said, this is an awkward room, lol. So, if I understand this correctly, you have half of the tank in the bedroom, which is seen, and the other half in a room where the utilities are and won't be seen but only by you. In other words, it is basically a public aquarium-style aquarium. Is that correct?

 

[jjohnwm]

Assuming that your drawing is done to scale, it seems as though you could push the entire aquarium back so that the front is flush with the wall, while still leaving a space behind it that is wider than the little hallway to the bomb shelter entrance. Am I missing something here? Flush to the wall, especially if you frame it in and finish the wall above and below, will look far nicer IMHO. I don't really get the plan for the desk, or how that will affect tank placement.

K1 is, IMHO, ridiculously overrated fluff. If you were extremely tight on space, its supposed benefits regarding the tumbling action dislodging the older, weaker bacteria and keeping only the young fighting-weight bacteria might...might...offer some slight advantage. But your filter is large, with so much room for biomedia that even the cheapest, most inefficient medium...i.e. something with relatively small surface area per unit volume...will be more than adequate for the bacterial colony you need. More surface does not translate to more bacteria; the size of the colony is determined by the size of the bioload, so that the greater the bioload, the more ammonia will be produced and thus the more bacteria will grow to feed upon it.

IMHO, the K1 fluid bed is nice mainly because it allows the removal of specific amounts of media...and therefore given percentages of the bacterial colony...to instantly create new cycled tanks in future. And, of course, it looks cool...the only reason I keep it around is because my youngest granddaughters love to watch it tumble and roll. Even they are starting to outgrow it; they're 8 and 10.

I like Poret foam in a couple of densities for mechanical filtration...easily cleaned and re-used, no replacement needed...and I like it just as much as a biomedium.

 

[Yoimbrian]

Thanks for the comments!

Yes, the drawing is to scale, made with the dimensions tools in Google Draw. I didn't include a picture since its messy currently because I'm re-organizing everything to add better storage to the basement, but, here we go!

So the first picture shows the entire area, so the white door sitting against the wall (the sliding door I took off the closet) is where my computer would go. The brown accordion door is currently wide open so you can see it on the right side there. The stack of cinder blocks there is what I had used for my last aquarium. The second picture I'm standing in the doorway of the utility room, so you can see the opening to the bomb shelter is narrow (there is a zig zag in the concrete, probably to break up a blast wave?).

If you want me to go on a tangent I haven't even started to explain how strange my basement is. When I bought the house, all of the locks on the doors in the basement were backwards. So, you didn't lock yourself in a bedroom, someone else locked you in, you couldn't lock the bathroom door, but someone could lock you in the bathroom, etc. And the bomb shelter has what I call the "blood letting table", since there is basically a wooden table with a rim around it in there that is set up to drain to the floor drain, and the table is so big they must have built it in the bomb shelter - for what purpose? Every time I do a yard project I feel like i'll dig up a body, and it would totally not surprise me at all. The previous owners were both doctors, and the house was left empty for like 10 years in between them going to a nursing home and then eventually dying, so I don't know much - but I met both of their kids at the house closing, and they gave me the creeps for sure (and neither of them wanted the house LOL).

ANYHOW.

Yes, if I pushed the aquarium flat with the wall it would give me less room in the weird hallway to work, but still plenty assuming I don't get obese, and the aisle would be larger than the choke point into the bomb shelter so its not like it would hinder access (and I dont really use the bomb shelter for anything). I would have to remove the door, but its not really a functional door so that's a non issue.

So I could move the carpet line into the room by 6" or so. Then build basically a cinderblock wall on the front edge to hold the aquarium (and could even paint it to look nice). If flush with the wall I could also install a wall / curtain on top of the aquarium to make it more of a picture frame style view (a wall would be easy even with my skill set to make, but if I want to clean the front glass or feed the fish from the front a curtain would still give full access).

I updated the drawing too. Honestly I'm not sure why I was so set on having it jut into the room, it will certainly look a LOT cleaner making it flush with the wall.

 

[Yoimbrian]

 

[jjohnwm]

Lol, that place is...unique... I think I would always have in the back of my mind the possibility (certainty?) of having the police tear it apart if (when?) the (first?) body is discovered in the yard...if you tell them...

Photos helped my amphibian brain visualize this room; looking at it, I knew almost instantly what I would do with it. The practicality of my plan depends largely upon how tall that desk is. My fat ass would demand a traditional low sitting desk, which would be situated against the wall directly in front of the tank. The tank itself would be mounted high enough that the entire thing would be above the level of the top of the desk, so that when sitting (not standing!) at the desk the tank is right in front of me, and is also on display for observation from any position in the room.

I personally would be using a sump, which is very convenient and accessible when the tank is mounted higher like this. I'd still make the tank as deep front-to-back as possible, but would move all the filtration to the sump, with a traditional overflow from the tank and a submersible pump for water return. You will have more display space in-tank, a larger total water volume, and more flexibility in terms of possible future changes to the filtration components. Yes, strictly speaking, this configuration would increase the ratio of surface area per volume, resulting in more heat loss, but the sump and tank can both be insulated on back and sides using styrofoam sheets, and the use of a submersible pump provides a certain amount of "free heat", so to speak.

Both tank and sump should be kept covered, not only to retain heat but also to minimize evaporation. I see what appears to be a glass-block window up on the exterior wall behind the tank site? That might be useful as a location for an exhaust fan to help control humidity during the summer months; a simple fan might do the trick, and is far cheaper to run than a de-humidifier (but you'll likely need one of those as well).

Admittedly, the pump will be lifting the water a few feet, which will also impact energy efficiency if you buy a larger, more powerful pump to compensate. To me, this is just something I'd accept; the power consumption difference between two pumps of slightly different capacity is miniscule compared to the costs of heating a tank. Heating is always the major expense of running a tank, by a wide margin.

The disadvantage to the higher tank mounting height is less convenient access to the tank interior for maintenance, planting, etc. Your utility room would be a good place to store a small stepladder or stepstool if required. Bear in mind that one of the things that is most often fiddled with is the pump, which in my plan will be easy to do, as opposed to reaching down into the tank to regularly clean and service the pump if located there. A bit of forethought can save untold hours of aggravation in the years to come.

I realize that much of this flies in the face of what your stated plans are; I'm just tossing out ideas that may or may not be useful. This tank has the potential to be a show-stopper; good luck with whichever way you decide to go!