Fish Room 64 Build Thread

[Jimmy]

On 9/1/2021 at 7:45 PM, lefty o said:

nope, merely meant your eye's are supposed to be on the fish, not the other stuff.

Once I read it again I put that together lol

[Jimmy]

Evening everyone. I was able to cut the remaining lids today, but I had to run to Home Depot like always since I miscalculated. I also purchased the duct for my exhaust.I did 9 lids the other week so this time around I had more of a game plan for the remaining 18. I had a bit of a system and treated it like an assembly line. I apologize for the lack of photos but you get the idea. Here I placed all the lids and got them ready gluing hinges and knobs. I also drilled them all for airline.

Still need to buy the remaining 4 ten gallon aquariums. I still precut.

 

i glued the remaining closed loop. I put it on some foam. The photo is awful and I have cord management to do still so please look past that. I understand this isn’t the best placement but it’s probably not permanent but I haven’t yet decided it’s potential final home. Typically I’m very safe with water so I’m not terribly concerned about getting it wet but play it safe it’s likely I will just take a empty 5 gallon bucket, modify it and just cover the pump while I water change. 
 

is it normal to smell glue after turning the pump on shortly after setting up? I think I will run it temporarily to air the system out because it’s rather strong smelling.

stay tuned for more updates this weekend folks!

[Tihshho]

You're definitely blazing through this build. It's coming along beautifully. In terms of the pump location, I can see on reason besides water that the placement isn't going to be great. You're going to end up wanting to sit in front of that tank to the left of it and watch what's going on. You'll either be raising some cool babies down there and want to get a better view, or you're gonna have something cool breeding and need to practice Yoga to take a long glance.

[lefty o]

its looking good, i like it. as for the smell, it is possible there is glue vapor trapped in the lines, idk for sure, but cant hurt to run it for a bit to air it out.

[Jimmy]

On 9/3/2021 at 7:00 PM, Tihshho said:

You're definitely blazing through this build. It's coming along beautifully. In terms of the pump location, I can see on reason besides water that the placement isn't going to be great. You're going to end up wanting to sit in front of that tank to the left of it and watch what's going on. You'll either be raising some cool babies down there and want to get a better view, or you're gonna have something cool breeding and need to practice Yoga to take a long glance.

The room comes with the kinks lol. I might put it up high but I’m running out of space lol. It’s also only 7 foot tall in the room so it’s a issue of hitting my head if I put it up. I will figure it out.

[Jimmy]

On 9/3/2021 at 7:14 PM, lefty o said:

its looking good, i like it. as for the smell, it is possible there is glue vapor trapped in the lines, idk for sure, but cant hurt to run it for a bit to air it out.

Exactly what I’m doing. I ran it for 2 hours it really dissipated. I’m so close lefty! I may get to leak test this weekend!

[Tihshho]

On 9/3/2021 at 10:33 PM, Jimmy said:

The room comes with the kinks lol. I might put it up high but I’m running out of space lol. It’s also only 7 foot tall in the room so it’s a issue of hitting my head if I put it up. I will figure it out.

Just hit me, since this has some walls you put up yourself, can you mount it on the otherside of any of the walls and just put a wire grommet in the wall to allow the feed of the hose from the pump to the room? It would keep some noise out the room when you have the door closed, be out of the way of the room, the only issue is in the winter it sucking in cold air.

[OnlyGenusCaps]

On 9/3/2021 at 8:53 PM, Jimmy said:

is it normal to smell glue after turning the pump on shortly after setting up?

Was for me.  Only lasted maybe 12 hours though.  I blew off the smell before running it into the tanks too.

I see you put the pump in the room.  How's the sound level for you?

[Jimmy]

On 9/3/2021 at 7:38 PM, Tihshho said:

Just hit me, since this has some walls you put up yourself, can you mount it on the otherside of any of the walls and just put a wire grommet in the wall to allow the feed of the hose from the pump to the room? It would keep some noise out the room when you have the door closed, be out of the way of the room, the only issue is in the winter it sucking in cold air.

Certainly a possibility, only limitation is it’s a detached shop. It’s not insulated so I don’t want to pump really cold air into my aquariums in the winter or hot air in the summer. I might extend the loop eventually and play around with that. It would be very easy to cut it in 

[Jimmy]

On 9/3/2021 at 7:44 PM, OnlyGenusCaps said:

Was for me.  Only lasted maybe 12 hours though.  I blew off the smell before running it into the tanks too.

I see you put the pump in the room.  How's the sound level for you?

Just like you guys mentioned, super silent once plumbed in! Room being so small it will be very loud cause of bubbles. I can’t wait to get water in hopefully this weekend!

[Jimmy]

I want to seed sponges from my main tank. Do they need to have air running through them to obtain some beneficial bacteria or can they obtain it passively?

[Tihshho]

Air  would definitely speed up the process, but running them without air will still allow bacteria to colonize on it.

[lefty o]

agree'd, you can just drop them in and they will grow bacteria, but would be slightly faster with water movement through them from having air running in them.

[Jimmy]

I have limited time and little ones but I don’t know how many photos one needs to show that I’m getting the tanks wet today! I need to go grab 4 more ten gallons. I got a couple more lines to run and 6 20 longs to fill.

[Griznatch]

Wow, nice progress!  The more I look at journals like this, the more I start eyeballing some unused space in my shop....
Who am I kidding, I don't have any unused space in there. 🙂

[Jimmy]

On 9/5/2021 at 7:43 AM, Griznatch said:

Wow, nice progress!  The more I look at journals like this, the more I start eyeballing some unused space in my shop....
Who am I kidding, I don't have any unused space in there. 🙂

We had to liquidate quite a bit of stuff. My space is only 7x7. You can do it!

[lefty o]

On 9/5/2021 at 9:43 AM, Griznatch said:

Wow, nice progress!  The more I look at journals like this, the more I start eyeballing some unused space in my shop....
Who am I kidding, I don't have any unused space in there. 🙂

you just have to clear out some of that stuff you havent used in years.

[Tihshho]

Before you get too deep in the weeds with filling and stocking, consider now if you want to pause and get the tanks painted. Painting the back and the sides reduce glare, mirroring, as well as make it a little easier to see things in the tank. I recommend going with Plasti dip as it holds up well and if you're ever tired of the color it peels right off as a sheet and you can re spray it with another color. I'm always of the mindset when it comes to painting tanks, paint it black and put it back. 

[Jimmy]

1

Edited September 5, 2021 by Jimmy
Video didn’t leak correctly

[Jimmy]

On 9/5/2021 at 10:02 AM, Tihshho said:

Before you get too deep in the weeds with filling and stocking, consider now if you want to pause and get the tanks painted. Painting the back and the sides reduce glare, mirroring, as well as make it a little easier to see things in the tank. I recommend going with Plasti dip as it holds up well and if you're ever tired of the color it peels right off as a sheet and you can re spray it with another color. I'm always of the mindset when it comes to painting tanks, paint it black and put it back. 

I’ve always preached painting them too. For right now I’m not too concerned. I thought I would be all about bare bottom but after getting them filled I will probably give them a dusting of sand. I appreciate the thought though. Also plasti dip is pretty good stuff 

[Tihshho]

I wasn't sure if you were planning it and started filling out of excitement. I know I've been there with tanks and planned something, got it together and kicked myself when I needed to tear it down to do what I needed to do.

[Jimmy]

On 9/5/2021 at 3:37 PM, Tihshho said:

I wasn't sure if you were planning it and started filling out of excitement. I know I've been there with tanks and planned something, got it together and kicked myself when I needed to tear it down to do what I needed to do.

100%. The wall is a dark grey and I rather like it. 

[Patrick_G]

What’s the plan for cycling the room? Are you going to do all the tanks individually or cycle a bunch of sponges together and distribute them among the tanks? 

[Jimmy]

On 9/6/2021 at 7:19 AM, Patrick_G said:

What’s the plan for cycling the room? Are you going to do all the tanks individually or cycle a bunch of sponges together and distribute them among the tanks? 

Patrick I’m sorry I didn’t see this post. I currently have 4 sponges tucked in my overgrown 40b. I don’t plan on stocking as quickly as I built therefore I’m not in a hurry. Secondly the room has been holding a steady 68~ But I’m waiting for a controller for the heater. I stupidly didn’t notice it was a on/off switch only unit.

I plan on grabbing a medium sponge from one of the 20s and hooking it up to air in my 40b.

I may pop open my canister and seeding a few tanks prior to stocking if I’m expecting by pouring some of the mulm out.

My 40b is housing angels and albino bristlenose that I might initially play around with. I should have eggs any day, I will probably cut out of the sword leaf that they decide to lay on.

Once those 4-5 sponges go into the room I will move the next group in.

[Jimmy]

UPDATE 

So a few things to catch you guys on. Can’t say it’s interesting or exciting lol.

The shop lights I ended up are showing to be quite useful. The hanging hardware is pretty weak so once you pop it in it’s best to leave it alone or the little bracket gets week. They also link together which is fantastic but unfortunately the link cords are only 20 inches long. So effectively if you want to link a light to the rack below, it won’t reach. After wiring the room I had confidence that allowed me to splice the extra link cords and extend.

Got to start filling up for the leak test in all the aquariums. This was an exciting step, my work is starting to come to fruition. I don’t have to explain this to my fellow nerms!

 

No picture but I ran all the air lines. 27 taps on the linear piston air pump from the coop isn’t enough ports. I have the remaining 8 valves partially open, if not it’s an insane amount of air for the aquariums. The bubbles were nearly displacing enough water to push the lids up! I don’t mind the light hissing for the time being but I will likely need to cut in the blow off like we talked about recently. I have 1 inch pipe so if anyone has part suggestions that would be great.

 

Cut a hole for the exhaust vent and duct. Pretty self explanatory. Drilled a hole with a bit to start then followed my traced line with a jigsaw.

Struggled getting this duct around the exhaust and the outside vent. I think the style of duct I got was tough to work with. I stapled zip ties to the wall and run it under both sides to make sure it sat securely. I imagine I will have to go back and adjust. I always used spray foam around the vent hole to make sure the exhaust feeds directly outside. The execution on this wasn’t perfect but it’s good enough for the time being.

 

Fastened a board from one rack to the other for my brine ship hatchery. It’s in the most convenient spot I can think of. The hatchery sits well on it and I can comfortably place another one.

Here’s the fastener I used for one side. 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2021 by Jimmy