My New Fishroom

[RedDragon]

Hi All,

As a lot of you will know, I sort of went a bit crazy buying fish from eBay and AquaBid over the past 2 months, and all the imports are due for pick tomorrow afternoon.

So, I decided I needed a fishroom to house them all. I've converted my guest room into a fishroom, seeing the bedroom is very rarely used. The bedroom itself has about a 3m square floor space, plus built-in cupboards. Considering the limited space I had to work with, I've spent the last 6 weeks planning how I was going to fit everything in the room the I needed. Leading up to this week, I've ordered a lot of stuff from lfs and online aquariums in preparation, and spent the last week putting it all together. I've almost finished the major work, so I thought I'd post some photos and a description of what's been done.

Things done to date:

• Stipped the room of everything, including the carpet
• Put down lino on the floor
• Had an electrician in to install more power points and a fluro light
• Bought a stack of 'easy assemble' heavy duty work benches (easy assemble my ass . Much blood and cursing)
• Bought 8 x 4 Bay Fighter tanks to house the breeder males
• Installed a 5ft planted tank for a community tank for the breeder females
• Bought 7 x 2ft grow-out tanks for the juvies
• Bought 3 x Spawning tanks

I still have some further things to do:

• Get 2 additional grow-out tanks for the stand
• Get 5 additional spawning tanks
• Bring in a source of water (sick of carrying buckets already) - this room is on the back of the house & the window is only about 5ft from a garden tap - so I think I be constructing some sort of water inlet through the window from the tap.
• Buy more BBS Hatchers & Feeders - so I can have one in every grow-out tank

I think that it's for this room. I'll be setting up another area in the house for a barracks for the young males that I want to sell.

All that said, here are some photos:

Breeder Stand - 1 x 5ft Community Tank for the breeder females, 8 x 4 Bay Fighter tanks for the breeder males. The 4 Bay fighter tanks each have an inbuilt filter (like a trickle filter) that is run off an air pump. One of the lfs makes them. All the tanks are run off 1 x 8 outlet air pump. Each tank also has a mini 25w heater in the back tank, in the filter space.

Grow-out Tank Stand - Just have to finish off installing the tanks - also will need to buy 2 additional grow-out tanks - I need to finish installing the tanks. Each tank has a 150w heater, and all the large bio filters and BBS Hatchers are run from a single 70l per minute air pump - Tornado 70 with an additional 18 way gang valve.

Spawning Stand - need to buy additional spawning tanks. I plan on having 2 shelves, each with 4 tanks. Each tank has a 25w heater, and I have small bio filters to be installed after the fry are free swimming. The filters are run off a single 30L per minute air pump - Tornado 30 with a 12 way gang valve.

Here's a photo of the room as a whole:

[Em]

Wow!! That's one hellova fish room!!

[ren]

thats awesome im so jealous :P

[boughetto]

superb!!!!!!! i wish i can have a room like that..its so awesome..

[BabyDragonz]

lol makes my set up look like a joke ^^ wish i had the money and time to set one up like that too :P

[RedDragon]

Don't worry Bd...you'll get there... Until now I've been operating with 3 spawn tanks and 2 x 2ft grow-out tanks in a bare room...lots of juggling of the few fish I had... As I mentioned, this has taken about 6 weeks to plan...alot of shopping around for the cheapest items I could find, and figuring out how it was all going to fit in the room....also had to take 2 weeks holidays from work to do the final setup.....had to brush off my project management skills to line everything up to turn up at just the right time (and pay for it.......I hate monthly pays...much rather be independently wealthy ) to be ready for the imports that are arriving.... Even after all that planning there are a few things like additional plants, snails, and food cultures that won't be arriving until after the imports have arrived.

[RedDragon]

Here's a few photos of what the room was like after I stripped everything out of it. It was in this state for about 4 weeks.

[BabyDragonz]

lol cool ^^ i only hav 1 spawning tank and 1 2ft grow out as well as a make shift barracks. unfortunately im extremely short on jars i just raided my mums pantry for empty penutbutter and veggiemite jars lol hate being desperate ^^

[Leela]

Nice ! It looks almost exactly the same as my fishroom! (except I have one side full of barracks) Just a word of warning, make sure you have enough room between the top of the tank and the shelf, I have left about 4-5 inches and its only just enough to squeeze a jug of water into (plus I catch my hands on the metal all the time... yeowch!!!) Its a wonderful setup! I'm picking up some imports tomorrow too! Yay for us! :P

[RedDragon]

Bd - The jars you see on my spawning table are fantastic. Marc, PeterJ and I did a bulk order from Plasdene, they come in packs of 6, but we had to do a minimum order of I think $100. They worked out to about $1.80 (?) a jar. I think that Marc still had 2 x 6 pack of jars from that order that he was planning on selling....you might want to contact him....

Here's the thread about the purchase of jars. http://ausaqua.net/forum/index.php?showtop...623&hl=Jars

[BabyDragonz]

yeah i red that one and it sounds cool ^^ but the only problem is that we are so broke atm my partner isn't too reliable and as it is we only have $20 left to buy food for the fortnight so i can't really afford to buy any for quite a while. which is y im kinda desperate and raiding my mums pantry i'm just happy i had enough money to buy everything the kids needed even if it means that my partner and i suffer a bit or alot depending on how you look at it. but i just hope i can get a lil money from my ct spawn. to buy some of those jars.

[RedDragon]

Just a word of warning, make sure you have enough room between the top of the tank and the shelf, I have left about 4-5 inches and its only just enough to squeeze a jug of water into (plus I catch my hands on the metal all the time... yeowch!!!)

I plan on setting up a water inlet through the window and having a house with a hand gun style fitting on the end for filling the tanks with water......

I clearance isn't too bad, but I will have to do something about the sharp edges on the metal though.

This is what I'm planning on using for my barracks setup. I picked up 5 2nd hand tanks from a lfs that makes tanks. These tanks came from an ex-breeder / importer. Each tank is 8ft L x 15in W x 10in H, made of 6mm glass. Each tank is divided into 20 compartments, and the 2 end compartments have holes to drain water. They're to be setup with a trickle filter, etc, and water flow over and under the partions. This is the next project after I've finished the fishroom. They have to be cleaned yet, as you can see they look abit manky at the moment.

[BabyDragonz]

OMG WOW ^^ lol you are sooo lucky i don't think i'll ever get to that point ^^

[RedDragon]

It was just be chance that I got the 8ft tanks. I actually went to the lfs to find out if that could make something like the 4 Bay fighter tanks, but on a large scale.....eg. 8 - 10 Bays. They said it was too small and fiddly a job for them, and then mentioned that they had these 5 tanks....the last of a large lot, all the rest of the 8fts and 6fts had been sold. It was a matter of buy them then or have to get them made in future for 3 times the price. I probably couldn't really afford them, but it was too much of a good bargin to miss....also if I don't use all the tanks, I can sell the spares.

[BabyDragonz]

lol yeah sounds good ^^

[marc]

Brilliant !!! fiona that is beyond my expectations.. well done.. there is nothing like having all your fish in one place. The fish room that is well thought of it makes life a whole lot easier.... I find the addition of a wheeled swivel office chair was also handy when it comes time for an official coffee break from work.

[Callatya]

Bloody nice! I know what you mean about the Hammerlok things, I sliced myself up pretty badly too. Great when they are up, but geez they are sharp!

[splendidbetta]

What a fantastic setup! Well done Fiona! Those 8ft tanks blew me away!

[RedDragon]

Brilliant !!! fiona that is beyond my expectations.. well done.. there is nothing like having all your fish in one place. The fish room that is well thought of it makes life a whole lot easier.... I find the addition of a wheeled swivel office chair was also handy when it comes time for an official coffee break from work.

Already ahead of you there....there is one in the room...just moved it out of the way for the photos

[Chuckie]

Fantastic! How hard is it to get a photo of the whole room, though! I can never get mine to turn out right in pics. I have gone a step further than the swivel chair, and have a 2 seater couch. I get REALLY tired in the fishroom, ROTFL! Impressive that you have put down lino and everything, that is a serious effort. BD, 1L milk bottles make perfect betta jars if you're stretched for cash, and they are square which is a bonus (saves shelf space).

[Leema]

WOW! I am soooo jealous. Congratulations. It's looking great. :lol:

[Mishy]

Awesome set up! :lol:

[TraceBruno]

OMG Fiona, that looks fantastic!! Well done, all that hard work has paid off! One more fish room to aspire to!

[boughetto]

i am totaly wordles..its so nice i wannnn

[Jess]

!!

The tanks! The room! The effort! *swoons*

Now, that is what I call a fish room!!