Starting from scratch - my small budget fishroom/125g SA tank build.

[mudbuttjones]

What's up MFK people? I'm getting settled into my new 95 y/o house. I'm broke, I work 6 days a week, and my wife and I have a one year old. Updates may be infrequent, but I'm slowly making headway.

Here's a link to my last good build threadhttp://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/diy-down-and-dirty-90g-40b-sump-on-the-cheap-ballin-on-a-budget.588872/ I'm going to try and outdo my self.

The goal here is to refinish some parts of the basement concrete, move a tank that's already setup, build a stand for that tank, run new wiring, build a stand for a 125g, buy a 125g, and eventually build a bar in front of it.


Here's where I'm starting. This 75g (which is wayyyyy overstocked atm) needs to be moved across the basement to make room for the future site of the 125. Eventually this 75 will become the sump for that tank.




The current stand was originally at the foot of my bed and is only like 2ft tall. The basement floor is unlevel and unforgiving. This just wont do. It's too hard to level.



Gee wiz what a beaut.


This is my prototype adjustable foot stand. There are a dozen 1/2-13x6" GR2 carriage bolts with nuts and fender washers. I crunched the numbers, that's a load of <70 lbs per fastener when the tank is full. This makes the stand movable to any spot in the basement. And this is a hundred times cheaper than pouring new concrete.



No joke about this 95 year old floor. There is a 3" deviation in height from the back to the front of where the stand sits.

 

[mudbuttjones]

9- 8ft 2x4's = $20.90
1/2" Grade 2 bulk hardware= $1.60/lb
Grade 8 T25 Torx screw #8x2.5" = $3.50/lb
Total damage = about $30





Yep I love it. So far so good. This will be making an eventual debut as a 6ft version. I consulted a friend who used to be a salesman for a hardware manufacturer. We agreed that 5/8" grade 2 bolts for feet should be adequate for a 125/75g setup or about 2000lbs with a similar foot design. Obviously grade 5 or 8 would be ideal... but have you priced those out in full thread? (non shanked)... close to $10 per bolt. No Bueno.

Now I've got room in the corner to do some rehab on the foundation and run some 12 guage romex and conduit.

 

[paulW]

Nice creative solution.

 

[Ihsnshaik]

That's awesome! I would've just made it higher from one side but this looks a lot better lol

 

[boldtogether]

View attachment 1155039
9- 8ft 2x4's = $20.90
1/2" Grade 2 bulk hardware= $1.60/lb
Grade 8 T25 Torx screw #8x2.5" = $3.50/lb
Total damage = about $30




View attachment 1155040
Yep I love it. So far so good. This will be making an eventual debut as a 6ft version. I consulted a friend who used to be a salesman for a hardware manufacturer. We agreed that 5/8" grade 2 bolts for feet should be adequate for a 125/75g setup or about 2000lbs with a similar foot design. Obviously grade 5 or 8 would be ideal... but have you priced those out in full thread? (non shanked)... close to $10 per bolt. No Bueno.

Now I've got room in the corner to do some rehab on the foundation and run some 12 guage romex and conduit.

Genius. I am sooooo stealing this idea...

 

[mudbuttjones]

Thanks guys, building one side taller than the other really wasn't an option. The floor seems to slope in every direction. The spot where the 125 is going is high in the center and slopes down in all directions, like a dome.. in the middle of the floor lol. That's my only real complaint about the house. The slab walls are perfect, but like most older homes, no care was taken to level the floor. You can hardly tell when walking on it, but as soon as you set something down on the floor it immediately becomes apparent.

 

[Ihsnshaik]

Thanks guys, building one side taller than the other really wasn't an option. The floor seems to slope in every direction. The spot where the 125 is going is high in the center and slopes down in all directions, like a dome.. in the middle of the floor lol. That's my only real complaint about the house. The slab walls are perfect, but like most older homes, no care was taken to level the floor. You can hardly tell when walking on it, but as soon as you set something down on the floor it immediately becomes apparent.

I saw your other build as well great work! Why are you running 3 canisters rather than a sump? There is plenty of space for one and cost would be greatly cheaper for one sump. a 40 gallon breeder tank is 40 bucks usually at petco/petsmart. They have twice a year sale or something. I ask this because 3 canisters is a little overkill on the size of the tank in my opinion.

 

[boldtogether]

Thanks guys, building one side taller than the other really wasn't an option. The floor seems to slope in every direction. The spot where the 125 is going is high in the center and slopes down in all directions, like a dome.. in the middle of the floor lol. That's my only real complaint about the house. The slab walls are perfect, but like most older homes, no care was taken to level the floor. You can hardly tell when walking on it, but as soon as you set something down on the floor it immediately becomes apparent.

Nice to see a legitimate fish room post...any plans for a 100K gallon system?
(Just kidding.)
My garage is like your slab...and it was so hard getting my tanks level. I don't like what I did with metal shims but it is sturdy....just kind of ugly and the empty spaces under thw stands bug me.
Since it is a fish room, in the future are you planning a centralized filtration? I hated the seemingly endless individual canister and HoB maintenance! !

 

[mudbuttjones]

I saw your other build as well great work! Why are you running 3 canisters rather than a sump? There is plenty of space for one and cost would be greatly cheaper for one sump. a 40 gallon breeder tank is 40 bucks usually at petco/petsmart. They have twice a year sale or something. I ask this because 3 canisters is a little overkill on the size of the tank in my opinion.

It's in preparation for the 125. I want to buy the tank, drill it, plug the bulkheads, put the fish in it immediately with the canisters and work on plumbing up the sump and everything at my leisure. The old stand was too small for a sump.

I'm sort of planning on just having a few tanks in the fish room, mostly larger (75g+) tanks with large sumps.

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...owner-whole-house-water-change-system.651679/

Here's the thread on my water change system. Filter maintenance doesn't bother me too much now that water changes are effortless.

If i were to do a lot of small tanks I'd run everything off of air and get a large pump or blower to do so.

 

[mudbuttjones]

Starting some work on the back space of the basement. I love chipping loose paint with a putty knife. This area is where the cistern used to be.

(A cistern, for those of who weren't born in the 1890s, is a partition of basement wall with a gravel floor underneath. Ground water drains up and rain gutters drain into the house into this basin. There's an overflow to the floor drain and a spigot on the back side.)

The wall was previously knocked out and the floor was filled in very poorly. Its mostly gravel with a very low content of actual cement. Also the floor is not sealed.

There is a 1/4" layer of loose crumbly concrete near the bottom 12".. I'm assuming this was deteriorated from having standing water in the cistern, and it must've Normally stayed about that high. The floor that was poured actually seeps water between where the floor meets the walls.

Im not worried, the rest is solid and its 6" thick. It's very uncommon to find a 1920s home, in the area i live in, with a poured foundation.

I'm going to prep the surfaces, fill in the crack between the floor and walls with hydraulic quickset cement, and paint with drylox extreme sealer.