fishroom setups

[discusguy]

I was just curious to everyones setup they have for their fishrooms. proteus, could you please pin this topic? I am setting up a new room, and i'm looking for ideas. so have at posting!

[Fishpimpin73]

Got ya stickied DG :wink:

I am going to be setting up a new fishroom also over the next few months and would love to get peoples input.

Just getting things moved in this weekend, but should have pics of the space up soon :P

[Mattzilla]

what a great idea!!!

the do's and don'ts when setting up a fish room

i'm sure that people who have set up a fish room in the past would have heaps of tips, ricks and time saving ideas they could share.

i have never set up a room but am definately planning on doing so in the future (when i can afford to buy a house) so this thread will be my bible so to speak

pics would be greatly appreciated

[discusguy]

i got this off DAAH, Hans has one of the best setups i've seen yet.

http://discusasahobby.com/forum/index.php?topic=2384.0
( admin edit: the above listed site requires you to register in order to view photos )

[mrpink]

Hi Everyone,

New to MB, would love to see something on plumbing. I am looking at starting a small breeding setup soon maybe 6 tanks 4 for breeding and 2 for grow outs. also where are you guys getting your breeding tanks from and what size are they, ones i have seen are like 2foot square tanks.

look forward to seeing this post grow

[discusguy]

breeding tanks can be anywhere from 20 gallons to 120 gallons, really it doesn't matter, the fish will breed fine, but i find that 40 gallons work great for that. as far as the growout tanks, thats up to you.

[Fishpimpin73]

I am in the process of sourcing 20 x 40g breeders for my fishroom.

Since most of what I am going to be breeding are either dwarf cichlids or shell dwellers, I can keep two to three pairs per tank with no major worries.

[kalebjarrod]

with a thread like this i might just build a new rack for the shed :wink:

[goldenpigeon]

KOOL AS RYAN!!!!! i need to build a few stands cause there are to many tanks in the house atm. u recon u could give me a couple of tips mate?

[Ben]

Ben's fish room tips!

1/ power power points, power points power points!

When starting a fishroom you will need as much power as you can get your hands on! unless you decide to heat the whole room.

2/

water supply and holding drums?

You will need a fresh water supply handy so you can do those frequent water changes, depending on the climate where you live you might also need to heat the water and treat it for chlorine.

3/

Space!

Tanks take up a lot of room so you want to have as much room as possible! specially if you want to expand! as everyone does get discus fever!

4/

insulation....
If you live in an area that gets cold at night an insulated fish room would save $$$ in power costs!


There you go they are my fish room tips!
but by all means if anyone thinks of others please
put up a post!

cheers,

Ben

[discusguy]

sounds good.

[kalebjarrod]

ben you forgot one

Drains, cause your bound to spill water

[goldenpigeon]

1 of my own:

LIGHTING! it is much more advantagious to have the whole room lighted instead of individual lights for each tank.

[discusguy]

does anyone have pictures of their setups? if they do water storage, how is that set up?

[mrpink]

But what is the best tank size of breeding 20, 40 60G does not help alot if the tank is only 12 inch's high and should be 24" in height

cheers

[discusguy]

40 gallon tanks IMO are the optimol size. the demintions, i don't know, but it is tall.

[wyldchyld01]

imo,

Get everything in there in the first place, plan plan plan.

Delivery and removal pipes, any air/water pipes that are to go in need to be done first so it's easy, to get to those hard to reach places once you install tanks can be a pain in the proverbial.

Rig up lighting to suit and i would suggest room lighting and not individual tanks (this means you'll have to think of the sort of lighting you will want to use, getting all this done first means you only need the sparky once and not have to get them back to add a new 130w high output 14000k globe like i do atm lol) ps planning on reviewing this light later, just awesome

Keep it all as simple as you can, as mentioned you'll want some space, also think of what it will take to get a tank out if it cracks, breaks or whatever......trying to get a 6x1x1 tank out and having to remove 4 4ftrs first isn't fun trust me.
Also it's getting new ones in, try to stick with a generic size for tanks, so it's easy to replace if need be, they'll fit right into the old slot if the stands are all the same. Different sizes all the time means more work when working out meds etc as you have to calculate water volume all the time or record somewhere what it is, just knowing that every tank is "blah" is much easier. replacement parts etc are minimised as well.

hope some of these things help

Brenton

[mistakes r crucial]

Here is a link to a few photos of our setup, 35 tanks on 2 systems, it took us 6 months to build, alot of laughs and tears and plenty of grog for the wins! If I had one piece of advice for anyone it would be take a look at as many other fishrooms as possible, we had the opportunity, didn't and regret it, it saves time, money and heart ache.

http://community.webshots.com/user/mistakesarecrucial

We filled the tanks with about 80 Discus from Roy Khoo, plus a few others, that are now pairing off and getting ready to breed.
MAC

[mistakes r crucial]

Brenton,

LMAO, you've been there, house of the cracked tank, stupid mistakes, great fun aint it!
MAC

[kalebjarrod]

Hay Mac

nice setup, neat and tidy

very very nice

[mistakes r crucial]

Hi Ryan,

Thanks, its alot better now after running it for 12 months, we had our fair share of problems but its sweet now.
MAC

[kalebjarrod]

Any pairs yet?

[mistakes r crucial]

A stack of pairs but nothing produced as yet. Poor males, I feel sorry for us lot, the girls are out there partying and we're stood there looking at it wondering what the helll it's for!
MAC

[kalebjarrod]

i just got sent a email which graficly display's exactley what its all for

do they need a copy? LOL

[mistakes r crucial]

I think you'd better send a few copies Ryan lol.
MAC

[kalebjarrod]

don't temp me mac :wink:

[WrxAnt]

Hi Mac,

I was wondering with your overflow setup is it really noisey?

I'm looking at setting up something in my house and noise is a concern because it will be in a room adjacent to a bedroom.

Cheers
Ant

[mistakes r crucial]

My room is fairly noisey as I run 2 13000 litre an hour pumps that drive 35 tanks. I wouldnt want it next to my bedroom.
MAC

[Phlipper]

Ok, my turn now..........

I have a fish room here in colder Adelaide so keeping it warm is not cheap
It has about 45 asorted size tanks from 170 litres to 12 litres, the average size being around 100 litres. My fish room is small and I have crammed as many tanks into it as humanly possible. It is fulling insulated, including shuttered windows for those cold nights or days. It has been running for around 18 months now and produced thousands of fish.

At present I have copious quantities of various Angels, and hundreds of bettas plus a few other incidentals. I am ceasing the bettas ATM as they are so time consuming, and as soon as the last few hundred are gone Discus may be on the menu while retaining some of the more exotic species of Angels...........errrrr...........agenda :shock:

The tanks are all on seperate air driven filters, no UV protection at all. Most tanks are bare bottomed and individually heated with standard aquarium heaters. I have used polystyrene sheets and Sisalation for insulating it all.............mainly because it was cheap or free. The room itself is only small which can be a pain at times, but it is functional and cheaper to keep warm. It has a sink, drain and a single lighting set up. I can easily drain and refill any tank in the room with a short length of hose and the drained water id run off to the garden............fish poo is great for the Petunias :lol:

Anyway here are a few pix, it is difficult to get photos of the whole room as it is small, and a centre tank set up makes it difficult.maximising as much space as possible.

[Phlipper]

The room, west wall

[Phlipper]

Another wall

[Phlipper]

future Discus tanks

[Phlipper]

Another angle, Angel tanks

[Phlipper]

The less cluttered wall

[Phlipper]

Centre tank bank

[kalebjarrod]

wow!

that a pretty sweet set-up :wink:

[Ben]

Thats a great set up mate!

Thanks for sharing the photo's.

regards,
Ben

[taksan]

Ok, my turn now..........

I have a fish room here in colder Adelaide so keeping it warm is not cheap
.

Whats with all those plastic bottles :?:

[kswong34]

I think is for Siamese fighters

[Phlipper]

Yep..............Siamese Fighters ..........hundreds of 'em in tanks and bottles. :roll:

[Roy]

OMG that is awesome !!
how many power points do you use ??

Roy

[Phlipper]

:lol: :shock: as many as I can get :lol: but I am using just two double power points, with power boards into them. I only run a single air pump, a 10 outlet one, but I run double that amount of tanks on it or more. Most of the larger tanks have heaters in them, and the heat generated from those heaters is emmitted from the water and warms the whole room to about 23 degrees constantly. Some of the tanks, in particular the smaller 12 litre ones are placed higher up where it is warmest, this is where most of my bettas are grown. Winter time sees my electricity bill double to about $600 per quarter.....Summer time about $400.......before "FISH" these bills were usually about $250......................Hmmmmm ???...have you noticed FISH is a nasty four letter word :shock: :lol:

[kalebjarrod]

LOL

wait till you have to run your tanks at 30-31 through the winter with all your babies

$600 will pale into insignificance :?

[Phlipper]

:shock: :shock: heck kaleb, an I though it was just your avatar that was scary, but those electricity bills are horrific. :lol:

[kalebjarrod]

ahhhh

a sorry side of the hobby

LOL

[Phlipper]

ahhhh

a sorry side of the hobby

LOL


Oh???.you talking about electickery or you face in the avatar :twisted: :lol:

[goldenpigeon]

KJ ur ugly dude...... actually ur a good looking guy but not in the pic hehe

[Merrilyn]

Yeah but better than the one of him nude at the computer ............ :shock:

[Phlipper]

Sounds like something I'm glad I missed out on seeing :shock:

[kalebjarrod]

you all love it

admit it

LOL

[goldenpigeon]

yer fully man! *quick pass me the bucket so i can spew!*

[kalebjarrod]

JNR

love your signiture

where do i buy th tickets?

ticketec?

[goldenpigeon]

for tickets hmmmm.... you will have to talk to my manager as i believe they are all sold out.

[sponge2]

Hi i dont no how much help it will be but i have been running my fish house for just over six years and has been changed many times at cost but have finally got there.

My shed is at end of my garden and is about 12foot by 5foot 5
Started with 22 small tanks part sump and the rest on bubble filters and the rest on externals. Very expensive to run and to buy.

System at the moment is running 400 gallons
1 u.v Pond type
2 sumps These are black plastic water tank and are linked
6 Breeding cubes
2 48x18x18 For growing on
1 52x21x22 For adults and pairing off
1 43x23x22 For adults and pairing off

The first sump has no meadia as is just for water volume so, also have a light over it so if i loose a tank for any reason i have a back up.

As for water change everything is on an auto system, the first sump has an over flow and the ro unit on hose pipe timer for 6 hours and the h.m.a on hose pipe timer for 0.75 of an hour, this all goes into the second sump which is were the pumps are.

I change about 100-120 litres per day.

The shed is also heated to 31degrees as is easyer than heating the tanks.

One last thing i now drill all my tanks at front with over flow out and then down into waste pipe to sump as you can control everything better.

[sponge2]

As for the electric, i heat the shed with parrafin (free from the local factory) so even in winter when it is below freezing all the time my bill is only about £7.50 a week, ( a couple of pints in the pub)eg £90 a quarter
and my night time lights are solar spot lights (so free to run as well).

Cheers

Hope it helps

Sponge2

[Rossco]

got a fair size room for a breeding hatchery, its about 6 Mts long by 3 to 4 mtrs wide.Also got 2 and a half inch styrophome as insulation.
I got all the racks done long ago.
Just thinking using a electric Radiator heater ok? i used to breed long ago but had a smaller room and the radiator heater worked well.

Any other heating suggestions please? i am after cost efficiant heating.
And no i will be no big time breeder, just a small outfit, 1 breeding pair is enough.

Your thoughs on heating will be great, thankyou very much.

[ILLUSN]

dependson your wattage, a 2400w radiator wil have to work 24/7 to keep the room warm, + heat doesn't travel too well by convection (through air) so to get your tanks to 30c you'll proably have to heat the room to 33-34.

if all you'l have is a small room wrap each tank on 4 sides with 1-2inch thick styrofoam (base and 3 non veiwing sides) and KEEP LIDS ON! that way a small 150-200w heater will do the tanks your using, you wont be wasting poiwer to heat air to transfer heat to the tanks, just heat the tanks directly, doing this in my room dropped my power bill from $1400/quarter(un insulated) to $960 (insulated), concidering the ligt needed for the planted tanks costs $200/quarter and the general power bill for the house ($280) heating the tanks only costs $500 and thats changing 1000L/night.

another tip when you heat your water for changes set a timer to tun the heater on at 11:30pm during offpeak times, that way your paying the lower rate for power for the initial heat from tap temp to discus temp

[Rossco]

Fantastic, Thank you ILLUSN.

Thats all i needed to know.

Thanks again for your advice, very much aprriciated.
A timer on heating the 40gallon water drums off peak is a great idea.

forgive my ignorance but what hours are off peak? guessing 12am? midnight? thanks.

[Rossco]

oops 11.30 pm lol did see it, just testing ya. :lol:

[Goerge_of_the_Jungle]

For anyone interested in setting up a Fish Room - that lives in the Melbourne area:

I work for a pipe and fittings manufactring company - one of the (if not THE) biggest in Australia.

I can get you PVC pipe and fittings & Poly pipe and fittings at a VERY cheap price compared to re-sellers (such as reece).

For example - 50mm PN6.3 (630KPA of pressure) in a 6mrt stick - reece might charge $40 - i can get it for you for $8 - $10 (this is just an example as i wont list actual prices in an open forum)

If your interested, pm me.