Fish Room Wall Addition

[Jon M]

Hey everyone. We recently converted our 2 car garage into a "den" that will be our TV and entertainment area. Previously we were using half of the living room for our fish room. This conversion is enabling us to use the entire living room area of the house for a full fish room. So we have another 16' wall.

I'm going to keep this thread going with updates as we build this wall in the fish room. The plan is 6 75g tanks double stacked. Originally we were going to do a 125g 75g in the middle but the 14' with gapping seemed a bit too tight for the 16' wall, so we went with 6 75g tanks instead. We had TV's and stands and book shelfs hung on the wall so so far here's our progress. The tanks, patched holes and spackled wall. Next I'll be sanding and painting. 3x knock down iron stands are in the mail already and we just took advantage of the 1/2 off Petco deal and obtained all the tanks already.

 

[SilverArowanaBoi]

Awesome! Can't wait to see how it turns out!

 

[jjohnwm]

Cool! Will they be individually filtered or all plumbed together into a system?

 

[krichardson]

Love the flooring...Pergo?

 

[Jon M]

Just finished sanding and wiping down the wall. Shelby will get that bad boy fixed up with paint next few days. Stands coming wednesday. Guess i better find a good roll on black paint for the back of the tanks. Any suggestions? Normally i krylon fusion spray but since the backs readily accessible i figure ill roll them for better coverage.

Cool! Will they be individually filtered or all plumbed together into a system?

IIndividually. Since I'm stacking I lack any room underneath for sump or canisters, and once I've comfortably gapped the tanks from the wall edge and each other, it's also a nice tight fit leaving no room there either. So I'm thinking each one's going to have to run HOBs. I used to hate hob filters but they've really come a long way over the years. I've always had good experience with seachem tidals. So I'm gonna start with a tidal 110 on each one, and long term probably add a second 110 to each one since I'm a fan of running filters in tandem incase something happens, and for easy maintenance without worrying about nuking bb. The one exception will be the one I do sw. Don't need a 2nd filter on a sw. The lr itself does its job. I have a tidal 55 on my current sw tank and I nuke the bb on the regular when I clean the filter. Once ur lr is established enough you don't need to worry bout nuking the added media.

Love the flooring...Pergo?

Ya, that tongue ans groove laminate stuff from HD. Its okay I guess.... I like the look, and boy has it taken a few water accidents with 0 issues, but I feel like it doesn't last long term. Those planks always gap eventually and you gotta leave that room under the base board allowing it to do so. I do think it looks nice. If I had the extra cash when I did those floors I would have done tile instead. Just did my garage (now den) with this new polyurethane coating stuff with the flakes? That stuffs cool. Pretty happy with the end result and how it feels, but damn is it expensive. Little under 400 Sq ft cost me 3k. Comes with a lifetime warranty tho so there's that.

 

[krichardson]

Yeah that coating is nice too.I would like to have that on my basement floor.

 

[Jon M]

Yeah that coating is nice too.I would like to have that on my basement floor.

I feel like that would have been the perfect floor for a fish room but we didn't intend to move the living room into a the garage as a den when I had that floor done. I actually sanded and cleaned the wall and Shelby painted it tonight so we are making the progress.

 

[Jon M]

The floor isn't perfectly level which makes the stand wobble a bit but I moved it to a spot toward center of the room and the stand is level, so I figure once it has some weight on it it'll sink right into the floor and the padding underneath and level fine. That being said I notice these iron stands are notoriously not perfectly flat where the tanks sit so I'm gonna level them with some insulation for piece of mind. Last time I did this was way back yonder and the go to was the pink 1/2 insulation board from HD. Hate that it's pink but gets the job done. Anyone know of any latest and greatest better ideas than the pink boards? I saw aquarium leveling mats online but they're expensive af when insulation board is cheap in large dimensions and cut able.

 

[fishhead0103666]

I highly do not recommend those titan eze double stands, I had one for a 55 and when the bottom tank was empty I could have pulled the stand over with one hand. Definitely unsafe, I’d only use them for terrariums.

 

[jjohnwm]

Yeah, when I hear the words "metal stand"...the picture that forms in my mind is that of a professionally-welded, perfectly square/plumb/level construct of powder-coated steel. I didn't realize they came broken down in a small box and just slip-jointed together. Not confidence-inspiring.

As long as I am being negative...the whole "self-levelling-by-sinking-into-the-floor" thing is a bit creepy too.

Between water and the tanks/stands themselves, we're looking at around 2 tons of weight. Spread out over 12 contact points of maybe 1 square inch each, that's a bit over 300 pounds per square inch. So I think that floor will indeed suffer some deformation, but I don't see how that will level anything.

I think it might be wise to create some sort of platform for the entire mess to stand upon, which would spread the weight over a much larger area and eliminate floor damage. Then take pains to make sure the platform itself is perfectly level before putting on the stands and tanks. I think that ideally you should fasten all three stands together into a single unit, easily done by attaching them to a plywood back panel or a couple of long boards or planks attached to the back. This would need to be done with the stands held perfectly square and plumb, not just screwing the wood onto the back of the tanks as they are lined up side by side on an imperfect floor. Look at the uneven gaps that are glaringly evident in your pic of the stands set in place. No bueno.

At risk of sounding paranoid...I would also fasten the whole kit and caboodle to the wall behind it at several spots. I see a child gate in one of your pics? This thing tipping over would be deadly...and it's fairly shallow front-to-back, so not all that stable and with a high center of gravity. A few long screws through the backing board and into a couple of wall studs would be a comfort.