Help protecting tank during emergency construction

[PSUolive]

Yesterday and last night we had extreme rain and wind come through. Long story short it caused water leaks in the bedroom as well as in my fish room.
The landlord sent out his handyman to assess the damage. It’s possible one of the previous owners had water damage and just covered it up and it just now gave way.
The house was built late 1800`s.
Anyway, he is going to have to cut out a section of the ceiling and then replace the wood supports followed by drywall and then replacing the drop ceiling tiles.
I believe he plans on doing it this coming Monday.

I am looking for suggestions on the best way to protect the tanks from all of the dust and debris that will be in the air from cutting out the 100 year old wood and plaster.
The most obvious thing would be to cover the tanks in plastic sheeting but I don’t know if that will cause any problems with oxygen exchange .

Incase anyone is wondering how they used to make plaster ceilings back in the day here is what it looks like

 

[Mjl714]

Agree on the plastic sheeting, and how about feeding outside air into your skimmer?

 

[PSUolive]

I may be able to do that if I go buy a 25 foot pack before then. I will have to tape it against the wall or some thing since it would have to run underneath the hole in the ceiling to get to the closest window. Good thinking!

 

[J_Gard88]

I run a contracting/remodel business of my own, anytime I do work on my place I turn the power heads off and all flow and cover with plastic. After work is done, check for buildup. Dust will gather Quickley in renovations. In short, put plastic over the tank (depending on how long the job may take) then when you can wipe your finger on something in the room and see no residue you should be good to go and check surface for debris and remove. In my area I think I'm the only contractor that put extra precautions for fish tank owners lol!

 

[J_Gard88]

also, in my opinion, it may be much cheaper to put some sort of Menards ship lap over that ceiling then trying to refinish that and make it look decent.

 

[Ben.QLD2]

Agree on the plastic sheeting, and how about feeding outside air into your skimmer?

In addition to this,

I run a contracting/remodel business of my own, anytime I do work on my place I turn the power heads off and all flow and cover with plastic. After work is done, check for buildup. Dust will gather Quickley in renovations. In short, put plastic over the tank (depending on how long the job may take) then when you can wipe your finger on something in the room and see no residue you should be good to go and check surface for debris and remove. In my area I think I'm the only contractor that put extra precautions for fish tank owners lol!

and this, I would just run carbon too. Covering, outside air feed and carbon filtration should cover all bases. In Australia (or your summer I guess) I'd be worried about temperature control and chiller ventilation but it shouldn't be a trouble for you around now.

Make sure you don't put plastic sheeting directly on your lights too. It could very well melt.

 

[PSUolive]

Thanks for the suggestions. Cleaning all the dust in the room after the work is done will be a nightmare on its own since I’ll have to move and wipe down everything in the room. But if the leaking roof problem is solved, I guess I should not complain haha

 

[PSUolive]

Construction completed. I covered the tanks with plastic sheeting as suggested (Lights all off, circulation pumps on, ran a air line from another room to a air stone in the saltwater tank. Then taped off 1/2 the room from ceiling to floor just to be extra cautious. The plastic sheeting was only like $2.25 at Walmart + double sided tape and I only used 3 rolls total so it was totally worth it and worked like a charm.

I run a contracting/remodel business of my own, anytime I do work on my place I turn the power heads off and all flow and cover with plastic. After work is done, check for buildup. Dust will gather Quickley in renovations. In short, put plastic over the tank (depending on how long the job may take) then when you can wipe your finger on something in the room and see no residue you should be good to go and check surface for debris and remove. In my area I think I'm the only contractor that put extra precautions for fish tank owners lol!