Building a Fishroom - Part 3

We will split this into four areas of concern. One will be the racks that hold your aquariums. Another will be the air system to run your filters. We’ll also discuss tank lighting. The last will be the water supply concerns that you’ll want to address.

The racks: We’ve found it better to arrange tanks to be in the center of the room. This will usually decrease the number your room can hold, but it will have other advantages. First you can see into them better, but more importantly, it keeps mold from developing on the walls. In this high humidity situation, a row of tanks up against a wall will hold moisture longer and greatly contribute to mold growth.

When building racks, design them so there is enough space between rows to work comfortably and to remove tanks from a rack as needed. If you stack the tanks in tiers (which allows you to keep substantially more tanks in a room), make sure you can easily get specimen cups, nets, filters, etc. between the tiers. We can’t give advice on the actual construction of racks, but will say we’ve found it adequate to support just the four corners of each tank, or in such a way that the 4 corners over hang the support beam by an inch or two. As long as the two support beams are parallel, with all corners supported evenly, we’ve never had a tank crack when supported in this manner. If you have a low corner, wedge it.

We make our racks from pressure treated wood. Any other type of wood will not last and the labor to rebuild is not worth any savings on un-treated wood. We’ve seen racks made from other materials like concrete blocks and metal tubing, but prefer wood for the ease of building, cost, space saving considerations and the ability to cut it to fit any space.

Air System: It’s worth putting in a central air system. 99% of hobbyists with a fish room will not use individual power filters. They are expensive, take up a lot of space, are labor intensive and do not work any better than simple sponge filters. Small individual air pumps are a huge pain, leaving a central air system the only practical way to handle most fish-rooms. Build the system with PVC pipe, using the largest diameter you can. The smaller the diameter the greater the resistance to the airflow, which will reduce the number of outlets you can run. Make sure to seal it well. Even a small leak can lose enough air to run many outlets. The best systems bring the PVC as close to the tanks as possible to enable the use of the shortest possible airline drops to your filters. The less airline, the better your system will work. If building the system with a blower, you must have a loop in the PVC with no dead ends. The first 10 feet off the blower must also be a straight run. With blowers, it’s much more important to use larger pipe. A minimum of 1.5” diameter PVC is needed for efficiency. For reasons of noise, ease of building and flexibility, most will go with a linear pump like an Alita.

Tank Lighting: Make sure the lights are directly over the tanks. Lighting in the aisles will tend to spook the fish. It can create a shadow in the tanks as you walk by. It’s also more natural for it enter from above rather than from the side. We like to use the compact fluorescent bulbs. They work better in high humidity and last longer than most.

Water Supply: Some people like to store their water before using it and other make their own with reverse osmosis filters. This also has to be stored. If you store water, be sure to sterilize the storage container at least once each week. It will grow undesirable bacteria if you don’t. In our fish-rooms, we simply bring a hot and cold water line into the room and then mix the two to get the proper temperature before putting it directly into our tanks. This technique works for most people as long as they remove any chlorine/chloramines as it goes into the tanks. It also should be put in under heavy aeration. This removes the dissolves gases and oxygenates the water which is a must.

We also think every fish room should have a faucet with a sink in the fish-room. The convenience of this can’t be overstated. You will also want a floor drain or sump pump in the room to help with water changes. Hopefully, this series helped to answer some of your questions and concerns on building a fish-room. There are many considerations we didn’t cover, and every fish-room is a bit different, with some considerations others don’t have, but hopefully this will get you started. Good luck.

© 2010 Angels Plus