Help with Monster Tanks and cost of upkeep

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Thanks so much for chiming in everybody.

The 8x4 tank is $1600 cheaper. But I am really set on the 12’ right now. The main reason being is the 12’ length would be huge when breeding pairs start spawning. The tank will most likely go through several different variations of biotopes focused around medium sized gregarious cichlids (geophagus, Thorichtys, etc). I would love to do a large Tanganyika setup as well.

I have to talk to my wife, but I want to price out making the garage longer so that I have room to build a fish room around the 12x4 tank. That would allow me to have the big tank and some other smaller tanks for breeding, QT, etc.

Of course I will have to price out what making the garage larger is going to run. But I think that will be cheaper than an outbuilding and easily convertable if we decided to move.

Thoughts?
 
Sounds like a good plan. Insulating the garage will help with heating the tank in winter. (A lot of members lament that their garage is not insulated).
 
duanes said:
I had my tanks in a separate building in Milwaukee, with a separate energy bill, from the regular house.
I admit it was not as insulated, as much as it should have been.
With about 1000 gallons in tanks that needed heating, all were covered with styrofoam insulation on 3 sides and the bottoms.
My energy bill ran around $150 on the fish building per month in summer, water about $50 per month.
In winter average $300 per month, but a spike to $400 on Jan and Feb was not uncommon.
I did every other day 30%-40% water changes in winter, with heated water (tap water was sometimes only in the high 30sF)
In summer more water changes (sometimes every day) but old fish water always went straight to the garden.
As far as lighting, only about 50% of tanks were lit, and on timers getting maybe 9 hours per day.
No air conditioning in the fish house.
Just before I sold the fish house, I had to remediate for mold, replace dry wall, and some flooring due to humidity and spillage.
Click to expand...


Thank you for replying with some numbers. Whew, that is a hefty power bill. Did you heat the room or with individual heaters?

Luckily, winter is not too bad here. Some years we don't even have much of one beyond a few cold snaps.
 
I did heat the room, but not to high, because I had a lot of Gymnogeophagus, and other Uruguayans that like the cool down.
I did have regular aquarium heaters for the more tropical tanks, sometimes 2 or 3 x 300 watt per heaters, 300 gallons. Pumps also added a little heat.
In Milwaukee, we easily hit 10 or more below zero in Jan, and Feb, for weeks at a time.
 
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Thanks Duane.


Whew, I have a lot to think about. I guess first thing that comes to mind is would I place the large tank and then build the walls around it? With the 24" height, it would fit through the door, but omg lifting a tank that large is not going to be easy.
 
Use an engine hoist to get the tank on the stand. A pallet jack works well for moving tank and stand around. We had to move our tank/stand several times when dry walling and enclosing the tank. The pallet jack worked great. Our stand is made out of 3 1/2" tubular steel and is 15' x 4' x 2' so is very heavy and substantial. The rented pallet jack moved tank and stand with no problem.
 
Thanks.

I may have to pop back in with questions. First task will be to discuss the garage changes with the builder to see what the changes will run. Then price out what adding the drains and a sink in the garage will cost. Those cost will impact how large the room holding the tank will be.

The good news is I can always add the tank at a later date. I don't think I want to undertake a tank build that large in the midst of building a home!
 
Where is your water heater going to be? If it is going to be near the tank, you can tie in to it with PEX tubing for a really economical way to heat your tank. No utility room adjacent or near by to make the plumbing a near slam dunk?
 
The plans we currently have has the office sharing a wall with the garage. The laundry room would be close by, but not in the garage. I don't know where the water heater is, I'll have to break the plans back out.

What is hard is we like the house plan, but there are a couple of things we want to change. The laundry room is stupid big, so we want to scale that down. The guest bathroom is small. So at this point, I don't know if the changes can be made or if we will start from scratch and look at new plans.

Can you expand on how heating with the water heater goes? Can you heat with a tankless water heater?
 
It's a closed loop system back to the water heater, so wouldn't work with a tank less on demand water heater...which is too bad for me because the addition to our house where our big fish tank is located has an on demand tank less water heater.

VLDesign describes step by step what he did on his 1500 gallon set up:
http://www.vldesign.com/DIY_1500Gallon_Aquarium.pdf

and his 2700 gallon tank:
http://www.vldesign.com/DIY_2700_Gallon_Aquarium.pdf

his 2700 gallon build thread:
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/my-new-2600-gallon-plywood-tank-project.416005/


Here's another build on a different forum:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2232513
 
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