Fishroom Reality Check

[count krunk]

bummer with the realtor. When she said the house may lose $25k over the fish room, that raised a red flag for me.

You are in the ATL area?

We recently moved to Lawrenceville. The front lawn was decently there so I am trying to keep it a nice lawn. In the back the only requirement is soft and green.

 

[User]

bummer with the realtor. When she said the house may lose $25k over the fish room, that raised a red flag for me.

You are in the ATL area?

We recently moved to Lawrenceville. The front lawn was decently there so I am trying to keep it a nice lawn. In the back the only requirement is soft and green.

I just moved away from lawrenceville. Lol

she had a point- a self contained 10x8 room in a basement with zero perceived functionality? It’s fine- I’m over it, took 2 days and I recovered about $1000 of materials I can reuse.

we are up in Canton now- better house abd closer to grandparents so worth the move.

Realtor continues to make mistakes but we looped her boss in abd she is going to cover losses stemming from her mistakes. So that’s something.

 

[User]

bummer with the realtor. When she said the house may lose $25k over the fish room, that raised a red flag for me.

You are in the ATL area?

We recently moved to Lawrenceville. The front lawn was decently there so I am trying to keep it a nice lawn. In the back the only requirement is soft and green.

@count krunk : quick Q- when did you buy your TBS rock? I tried to get a group order via Nemos in Duluth last year since I’m not paying $26/lb with freight and no one was interested. I’ve been considering 10lbs to reseed my new build but it’s so expensive for such a small amount.

I’ve been trying to convince a store around here to bulk order but no one has a separate system capable of supporting 500lbs of rock for a month until it sells.

 

[count krunk]

I bought my TBS rock, hmm I'll have to double check, but I believe it was in late 2019 or early 2020.

I lived in Orlando at the time, so shipping from tampa to my home in ORL wasn't that expensive.

 

[User]

I bought my TBS rock, hmm I'll have to double check, but I believe it was in late 2019 or early 2020.

I lived in Orlando at the time, so shipping from tampa to my home in ORL wasn't that expensive.

Gotcha. Thanks

 

[User]

This happened... finally

 

[count krunk]

I'm sure you already covered it, but could you give me a summary of the changes from old fish room to new? Or is it going to be set up more or less the same way?

 

[User]

I'm sure you already covered it, but could you give me a summary of the changes from old fish room to new? Or is it going to be set up more or less the same way?

Imma going to do a second build thread once I make some progress- I want to do a good opening post for views and likes. Lol

it’s going to be essentially the same sump arrangement, but this time I’ll set up the cryptic fuge and I’ll have dedicated dosing and CaRx station and a better designed live food production area.

got some drylok up on half the walls. Reorganizing so I can paint the rest tonight

 

[User]

Messy

 

[count krunk]

That's gonna to be awesome! Let me know if you need help

 

[User]

Didn’t get a chance to finish die to family stuff but making progress. Finish paint tomorrow and measure/ prep equipment hangers. Thinking I might be running plumbing sometime Tuesday/Wednesday

 

[User]

Had to move the ac runs to clear the top of the wall so I could finish painting.

just have to do a quick finish coat on some areas then I can move on to making equipment hangers for piping and equipment, and the floating 29g

not sure acting what I’m doing about the ac ducting. Thinking I might definitely have to do a soffit along the back wall above the tank, and try to stuff the 8” main trunk running along the side wall into a hoist space. Then button everything up with green board drywall. That’s going to have to be after I get things going though- don’t have the time for that right now.

 

[User]

Oh- and I have a three week deadline to get this going.

wife surprised me today with a week trip to an isolated vrbo rental at the beach. Just us, the two girls and her parents- all adults are fully vaccinated, and we will be doing home cooked meals all week, just like we do here.

so- really, a week and a half to get things running, then 10 days to test and make sure nothing is hinky.

 

[User]

Little bit more time today to work on plumbing. Other than being short a few couplings, and a few custom hangers, everything is recovered from the old fishroom.

I HATE drilling concrete to mount stuff. What a pain in the butt. So nothing is exactly plumb, but I have some leeway with the elongated holes in the hanger clips so I can get it pretty close

 

[count krunk]

The hangers are a good idea. I also hate drilling into concrete. It's a pita. One tip I've learned is to leave all the dust in the hole. Helps the screw get a good hold

 

[User]

The hangers are a good idea. I also hate drilling into concrete. It's a pita. One tip I've learned is to leave all the dust in the hole. Helps the screw get a good hold

Oh, yeah. I never hang pipes or conduit without secure fastening within a couple feet of any ‘interactive element’- like the BA main siphon valve. Plus I have a 90 degree rotation and a ‘left jink’ of about 2 feet- so I’m using flex for super smooth wide radius angles- which puts a lot of torque on the joints. Securing them immediately at the joint/ coupling takes the pressure off.

I also have 2 sets up above the floor, to take the pressure of the bulkheads in the overflow box, the end glass. You don’t want to slowly spring a leak at a bulkhead seal due to unsupported pipes putting pressure on them.

my issue with the concrete is that it’s 14 years old- and spalls a little bit so the bit wanders. It’s fine. Things are holding, and I’m not too worried about the fastener type with the amount of pressure being applied.

I’ll be using BIG 1/2” diameter, 4” long anchor bolts when I set the hangers for the floating 29G. The bigger bit doesn’t wander as much, and I can start the hole through a 1.5” thick piece of 2x4 as a drill guide.

 

[User]

GAH! Just spend 90 minutes figuring out a way to mount the heat exchanger tucked behind the BA drains, only to realize last minute that the pump feeding it would need to be directly in the path of the incoming siphon main drain. Past experience with initially running reactors from a pump in the same location tells me I’ll end up filling the exchanger with micro bubbles and essentially ‘air lock’ the thing.

oh well

I have a 3x4ft plywood mounting board that’s going up behind the sump first two chambers- I’ll attach it to the instead.

 

[User]

Finished the BA drains, all plumbed and fastened down, and got the ledgers up for the equipment board behind the sump. This is for clamping down the 1.5” return line, hanging the reactors, the ATO controller and pump, the DC controller for the return pump and the heat exchanger.



next is to finish painting the board and hang it, then assemble and hang the drain line for the water changes etc. this will be running all the way around the room, behind the sump, past the frag tank and right through the wall to the QT and holding area. I can use this to siphon from those tanks straight into the standpipe, down the drain. Zero buckets.

 

[User]

Man, long day.

grandparents are helping out with the kids- uugghh, literally had to bribe them
With a week long vacation to Florida in exchange for 6 days of help. So I got a full day working in the fishroom

Drain line installed
Equipment board behind sump installed
Including a hidden shelf for the return pump power brick

tomorrow - install the return plumbing and put up the sheathing over studs in the frag tank location.

I ended up making the equipment board a little wider than originally planned, since I wanted to leave space for future upgrades like a UV sterilizer, Ozone, possible external skimmer. I also had to push it out from the wall by 6” in order for the sump to line up with the settling tank outlet, and give room for the drain line.

also cut the boards for my apex control panel and laid the various modules out - easy, seeing as I only have the head unit, a pm2 module and 2 x 3D printed BOBs, and the ‘easy buttons’ for shutting down equipment. Again- leaving space for probable expansion with an FMK and maybe a second pm1 (for the water station).

i don’t control lights or pumps or anything else so I’m not sure what other modules I’d want or need.

below that I will have my fridge (store phyto for dosing), and my dosing station, as well as space for a CaRx when the time comes.

 

[User]