Reef tank in a Apartment

Anexs97 · Jul 18, 2020

Little bit of back story. I currently have a 125 reef tank. I will be moving in about a month. Im going to downsize my tank for the time being in till i buy a house. What are you doing to mix saltwater and have ro on hand.looking for some advice on having a reef tank in a apartment, tips, and anything you wish you did?

Jimbo662 · Jul 18, 2020

After typing this I realized I misread your post...well if you do decide to get an RO unit here's an idea of where to mount it. I mounted my RO/DI setup on a piece of 3/4" plywood that's about 2' x 7' (it's actually 2 pieces attached together, one is 4' and one is 3'). Stood it against the side wall next to the dryer and anchored it to a 2x4 with one screw. I got two 20g white Rubbermaid trashcans with the little wheel bases so I can just roll them around as needed. One for mixing and one for draining old water.

ZoWhat · Jul 18, 2020

1) get RENTERs INSURANCE bc if your tank busts loose you're financially responsible for damage and the damage to the apartment below you

2) try and rent a ground floor apartment. Never understood why a guy wants a 2nd or 3rd floor apartment. You come home tired and have to CLIMB stairs. Urgh. But I do understand women living alone want to be up in the air away from Thieves and PeepingToms

3) absolutely get Property Mgmt approval and show them you are buying Renters Insurance

Good luck

.

eag · Jul 18, 2020

I've been running a red sea reefer 170 in a small apartment for over a year. I've learned a lot since then.

Anything I wish I did? Start smaller. At 40-ish gallons, a 5g water change doesn't quite cut it, and minimizing the amount of equipment required for a WC is key. Not to mention the difficulty in maintaining "enough" water on hand for an emergency.

I have an RO/DI unit sitting on the floor in between a toilet and the wall. I leave the lines ready to go - a faucet attachment stands at the ready on the counter top, and I roll up the waste and clean water lines for storage alongside the filter. When I need to make water, I simply screw in the attachment, unroll the waste line into the toilet, and unroll the clean water line into the bath tub where I fill two 5g jugs. I try to keep 10g on hand at all times. Not as much as I'd like, but that's all the closest space allows for.

Stack WC buckets then store the equipment inside the top one. I also keep two large Rubbermaid bins - I think they're 20g. I use them for emergencies (hospital tank, very large WC etc). I store equipment inside one, and the RO/DI jugs in the other. Collapsing everything like this helps conserve floor space while still allowing you to keep some larger containers and bulky water jugs on hand.

Not sure if this is the kind of information you were looking for or not, but I do hope it helps

G Santana · Jul 18, 2020

Depending on tank size, make sure the floor can hold the load.
Apt owners may not like their water bill raising due to RO being run.
Get that renters insurance for sure!!!

I ran my 125 in an apt and I subsidized the water bill because of my RO unit and the owner was cool with it, although he worried about tank ruptures.

Zionas · Jul 18, 2020

Lol I’m getting a 6’ 180 on a second floor apartment because there are no rooms on the first floor in my place. It will take up a whole section of wall and much of my life in that apartment will revolve around the tank.

Zionas · Jul 18, 2020

Thank goodness it’s got elevators. Stand goes into room first, tank will be carried vertically in the elevator up to my room. xD then the setup begins xD. The LFS will be hiring a moving company to do all the work.

G Santana · Jul 18, 2020

Post pics of the move, should be interesting

Zionas · Jul 18, 2020

Great. Will try to.

BASEDVXO · Jul 18, 2020

I used to run my ro unit from my bathroom sink and it worked just fine. Some ro units will come with an attachment to where you can connect it directly from the faucet and you can remove it once your done with it . I did this for about 2 years now keep in mind that depending on the tank size it might or might not be worth it as water gets wasted in the process when making ro water so your water bill might go up . You can pick up the connector at the brs website its called a Faucet Diverter valve for anyone that is interested .

Nick Steele · Jul 18, 2020

I have a 20G reef 55G planted and 15G planted in our apartment (get renters insurance)

I use a 10G brute and 5G bucket for the reef tank 10G for water changes and 5G for ATO. I luckily am able to fill it from my buddies house and don’t need to run a RODI system. If I didn’t have him I would probably just get my water from LFS I use 13G in 2 week (hoping to go 2 weeks between water changes soon and then water will last a month) and it would cost $13 each time.

Anexs97 · Jul 18, 2020

Jimbo662 said:
After typing this I realized I misread your post...well if you do decide to get an RO unit here's an idea of where to mount it. I mounted my RO/DI setup on a piece of 3/4" plywood that's about 2' x 7' (it's actually 2 pieces attached together, one is 4' and one is 3'). Stood it against the side wall next to the dryer and anchored it to a 2x4 with one screw. I got two 20g white Rubbermaid trashcans with the little wheel bases so I can just roll them around as needed. One for mixing and one for draining old water.

That is genius! I should mention i have everything I need for this build except over flow box.

Anexs97 · Jul 18, 2020

skimjim said:
1) get RENTERs INSURANCE bc if your tank busts loose you're financially responsible for damage and the damage to the apartment below you

2) try and rent a ground floor apartment. Never understood why a guy wants a 2nd or 3rd floor apartment. You come home tired and have to CLIMB stairs. Urgh. But I do understand women living alone want to be up in the air away from Thieves and PeepingToms

3) absolutely get Property Mgmt approval and show them you are buying Renters Insurance

Good luck

.

Yes im definitely getting Insurance no matter what! Also the 1st floor is Definitely what I was thinking to! Of course get approval first dont want any issues.

Fezbearer · Jul 18, 2020

skimjim said:
1) get RENTERs INSURANCE bc if your tank busts loose you're financially responsible for damage and the damage to the apartment below you

2) try and rent a ground floor apartment. Never understood why a guy wants a 2nd or 3rd floor apartment. You come home tired and have to CLIMB stairs. Urgh. But I do understand women living alone want to be up in the air away from Thieves and PeepingToms

Dealt with an apartment fire once. climbing down three smoke filled stories was enough for me to want ground floor from now on.

Reef. · Jul 18, 2020

My Rodi system is mobile, just connect when needed, stores in a cupboard the rest of the time.
Depending how long you are there, you could just buy water, distilled water or from your LFS.
I store the salt mixing bucket in a cupboard too, I then run a long piece of tubing to the mixing bucket, so no need to move the mixing bucket, I also do the same for the ato top up water, run the tubing to the reservoir.

Tamberav · Jul 18, 2020

Anexs97 said:
Little bit of back story. I currently have a 125 reef tank. I will be moving in about a month. Im going to downsize my tank for the time being in till i buy a house. What are you doing to mix saltwater and have ro on hand.looking for some advice on having a reef tank in a apartment, tips, and anything you wish you did?

Make sure aquariums are allowed, some places have size limitations. You don't want to have something break, call maintenance to fix and get ratted out.

When I had just a 12g, I would buy jugs of distilled water and mix in a 5g bucket. I eventually bought a RO That hooks to the faucet and in my current apartment I bought the part so it screws in under the sink. My current apartment has no limit on tank size. I told the owner I have fish tanks and he said "this would make a great fish tank wall, you could put one alllll the way across" LOL the wall must be 20 feet... ! That's how I knew I found the right apartment

monti mike · Jul 18, 2020

My tanks in an apartment. I have the BRS RODI system and I hook it up to the sink when I need to make water. Then I unhook the system and store it - it’s small and can fit just about anywhere. I have two five gallon plastic containers and one 5 gallon Home Depot bucket. I’ll usually make 5 gallons of RODI in the bucket to make saltwater and another 5 gallons of RODI to go into my top off 5 gallon container. (I feel like I’m rambling but it makes sense to me!) when my two 5 gallon containers are ready (one salt one RODI) I just put them behind a door in my closet until I’m ready to use them.