Guppysnail Posted April 15 Share Posted April 15 Until recently I rented out the basement as storage space. Our house was larger than Hubby and I needed. Storage tenant is leaving.They stopped paying rent so space available now. So I decided my fishroom-s needed to go downstairs to make it easier on me. Currently they are two converted spare bedrooms. One room still partly what used to be my dressing room. It’s now dual dressing room that is not working well as a dressing room and a squished in fishroom. When I put out my tote for water changes and bucket I siphon out used water there is no room to walk. It’s a step careful and try not to trip situation. I get water by running a hose through the house from the kitchen and used water goes out the window or to the bathroom down the hall. I store my buckets in my bathtub because I’m out of room. Very inconvenient and requires moving them every day to shower. Working in my rooms means everything I’m currently using for whatever fry hatch setup sits on the floor in front of tanks. I bought rolling shelves but they don’t roll over the throw rugs I use in front of each tank to protect the carpet. The house is split level so rooms are above the garage on the second floor. The basement is actually the first floor. This is the basement. 13’ x 26’ plenty of room. 😃 My Hubby ❤️ and friends from Smallworld Aquatics are helping me. One is a contractor. The challenges The room hits 44 in the winter. The HVAC was not installed correctly by the houses first owners. It was an attempt at finishing the unfinished basement. The foundation stone stick uncovered 3 inches into the room and works like ice packs. The garage is not insulated and drafty. We run a heater in the garage over winter to keep the pipes from freezing (they froze and burst one year) The only plumbing down there is hooked to the washer. No faucet available. No drain other than closed sewer line the washer is hooked into. 3 plugs wired to a circuit containing mainly outlets outside, in the garage. And my laundry room. Not usable in capacity for 20 plus tanks. I bought the electrical supplies to run more sockets my breaker box has room for more breakers. I bought the flex duct but they were out of boots the size I needed. Gup is learning to HVAC 😲 Hubby bought the paint and flooring. He also helped me get the first coat on. The insulation board will be delivered Saturday to cover the exposed foundation concrete This party has officially started 🥳 Flooring, utility sink and beautiful island Hubby surprised me with ❤️ 4 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NikkiRae Posted April 15 Share Posted April 15 That is a lot of tanks and plants! good luck on your renovation 🙂 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Odd Duck Posted April 20 Share Posted April 20 How exciting! Plus a lot of work! I wish I had a mostly empty room to move my tanks into. I’ve got to move so much stuff out of my Offish before it can become my Offish that I’m still mostly stuck in idle. 😂 You can still install a sump that sits under the utility sink so your sink drains into it. Keep the tanks all on stands and you can still get a decent drain rate with your python or generic equivalent. That’s what we’re going to have to do for the Offish. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reefhugger Posted April 20 Share Posted April 20 Oh my stars what a project. You've got fantastic assistance and a good place to convert to a fish room dispite the challanges. The pothos and tanks against that beautiful color will be so beautifull. I'd love to have a utility sink like that. Mostly dragging tank items out to the hose on the lawn to clean. Props to hubby for the lovely and useful cabinet. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted May 1 Author Share Posted May 1 Both coats of paint are on. Trim is painted. Carpet and tack boards are up. the lower 20 inches of 2 walls are exposed foundation stone that sticks 2 inches into the room. We are in process of putting up 1 inch insulation board over it. We already picked out the wallpaper for over it. Next step is redo the duct work. The vinyl flooring was delivered. It’s coming right along at Gup’s old people pace 🤣 NOT a scale drawing by even the most wild stretch of the imagination. But a rough draft layout. mAlso those stand are all double tank stands. They each represent 2 tanks. All these tanks are current the only new tanks being added are a 40B and 8 10g tanks for breeding and grow out 2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Odd Duck Posted May 1 Share Posted May 1 That’s going to be awesome! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted May 13 Author Share Posted May 13 It’s coming along. We are replumbing the house to update brittle pvc. That will include adding a hooky and drain for my utility sink. The first black trim color called very black went on. It turned out dark blue and did not match the color card. This brought out the blue in the gray wall paint. My niece came over and said “WOW, it’s so blue in here”. 😝 It looked like I was setting up a petsmart 😑 Hubby got new trim paint for me. He made them remix 3x until it was the black I wanted. So now it’s not SO BLUE instead of grey. 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted May 19 Author Share Posted May 19 It’s getting there 2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeeJay Posted May 26 Share Posted May 26 Come next year I will be there to give the toast on the new fish room! 🥂🍾 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted May 26 Author Share Posted May 26 @TeeJayWe are laying flooring and finishing baseboards this weekend. All that’s left is redoing the air ducts and hooking up the utility sink. Then adding electrical. The house replumb to PEX was successful and added in my hookup for the sink to attach. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeeJay Posted May 26 Share Posted May 26 On 5/26/2024 at 12:10 PM, Guppysnail said: @TeeJayWe are laying flooring and finishing baseboards this weekend. All that’s left is redoing the air ducts and hooking up the utility sink. Then adding electrical. The house replumb to PEX was successful and added in my hookup for the sink to attach. Looks like I need to make it out sooner rather than later. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chick-In-Of-TheSea Posted May 27 Share Posted May 27 (edited) Looking great, @Guppysnail! But this is not going to help your case of MTS…hehe Edited May 27 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted June 3 Author Share Posted June 3 Hubby did all the HVAC. We have a few more new drop ceiling tiles to put up. Next weekend finishes flooring and baseboards. He thinks he will finish installing the sink also. Then my friend will install the 3 dedicated breakers and all the sockets. End in sight. 1 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted June 3 Author Share Posted June 3 🎉 ordered my LP air pump. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeeJay Posted June 3 Share Posted June 3 Oh sweet lawd it's almost ready.....it's almost ready! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnyxxl Posted June 4 Share Posted June 4 Looks great, pex is great. I re-did the cpvc in my house and used pex was so fast. I also added extra breakers for future expansion of the electric while redoing the house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted June 4 Share Posted June 4 On 4/15/2024 at 6:14 AM, Guppysnail said: The room hits 44 in the winter. The HVAC was not installed correctly by the houses first owners. It was an attempt at finishing the unfinished basement. The foundation stone stick uncovered 3 inches into the room and works like ice packs. The garage is not insulated and drafty. We run a heater in the garage over winter to keep the pipes from freezing (they froze and burst one year) Just going to toss this out there based on a few series I've seen by Mike Holmes (he fixes construction mistakes)... Temp changes like that with the added water, it might be a recipe for a major, unseen issue. Just something to think about given all of that. It might be time to have an inspection or open up some walls, rather then let things linger. I've seen all sorts of issues and the house I'm in now is probably one of the worst I've seen with some gremlins from "Mister Fixit" or whomever was here prior. I've seen Mike use Flir cameras to check wall insulation issues too, might be worth renting/borrowing one. Regardless, congratulations on the new space availability and it'll be great to see things progress towards completion! I'm excited to see what new opportunities it brings you. On 5/26/2024 at 9:10 AM, Guppysnail said: @TeeJayWe are laying flooring and finishing baseboards this weekend. All that’s left is redoing the air ducts and hooking up the utility sink. Then adding electrical. The house replumb to PEX was successful and added in my hookup for the sink to attach. NICE! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted June 4 Author Share Posted June 4 On 6/3/2024 at 10:15 PM, nabokovfan87 said: Just going to toss this out there based on a few series I've seen by Mike Holmes (he fixes construction mistakes)... Temp changes like that with the added water, it might be a recipe for a major, unseen issue. Just something to think about given all of that. It might be time to have an inspection or open up some walls, rather then let things linger. I've seen all sorts of issues and the house I'm in now is probably one of the worst I've seen with some gremlins from "Mister Fixit" or whomever was here prior. I've seen Mike use Flir cameras to check wall insulation issues too, might be worth renting/borrowing one. Regardless, congratulations on the new space availability and it'll be great to see things progress towards completion! I'm excited to see what new opportunities it brings you. NICE! The temperature issue was already addressed and corrected. I’m just bad at journaling upgrade and construction details. 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted June 4 Share Posted June 4 On 6/3/2024 at 7:18 PM, Guppysnail said: The temperature issue was already addressed and corrected. I’m just bad at journaling upgrade and construction details. Good to hear! 🙂 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted June 8 Author Share Posted June 8 Almost done 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chick-In-Of-TheSea Posted June 8 Share Posted June 8 Wow! This is so exciting! Don’t forget to add a chair so you don’t have to sit on the bucket to watch your fish! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted June 8 Author Share Posted June 8 On 6/7/2024 at 10:50 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said: Wow! This is so exciting! Don’t forget to add a chair so you don’t have to sit on the bucket to watch your fish! I have 2 rattan cushion rolling chairs for the room. Gup’s movin on up from buckets. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted June 10 Author Share Posted June 10 Sink was hooked up today. I ordered 2 ACO linear piston pumps. 1 inch pvc (wide diameter for easy air valve install) were painted. Getting so close I’m going crazy. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeeJay Posted June 10 Share Posted June 10 On 6/10/2024 at 2:29 PM, Guppysnail said: Sink was hooked up today. I ordered 2 ACO linear piston pumps. 1 inch pvc (wide diameter for easy air valve install) were painted. Getting so close I’m going crazy. 2 pumps gonna have some major air going on up in there 😁.. about how many lines do you think your going to be running? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppysnail Posted June 10 Author Share Posted June 10 On 6/10/2024 at 2:50 PM, TeeJay said: 2 pumps gonna have some major air going on up in there 😁.. about how many lines do you think your going to be running? For my tanks roughly 50-60. But then I have floating breeders everywhere and brine shrimp hatching. My friend said they lost pressure around 60 drops. My room being so large if I ever want more tanks I’ll need it. I figure since it’s a build do it right the first time rather than try to add 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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