New house discus fishroom!

[vandiscus]

Hello Everyone,

I am moving to a new house in 2 weeks and looking to start up the fish room again. I am very happy to be back on Simply Discus after over a year. I am looking to show off some the beautiful discus fish I am bringing in from my motherland of Vietnam. Fish room design as below. This fish room will house mainly discus, arowana and altum angel F1. Hoping for feedback and advice from knowledgeable members.

Thank you.
Vansu Nguyen

[rickztahone]

Is your goal to simply display your fish in the fishroom, then this is a sweet setup. Possibly my only piece of advice I have to give is to place some kind of swing door where your sink is so that you get a sense of a finished wall through out.

If your goal is to breed, which I do not believe to be the case, you would need a lot more tanks for your fish room.

Either way, this will be a nice looking fish room. Roughly what are the dims and volume of each tank?

[vandiscus]

Hi Rick,

I am planning to breed later but not now. I want the room to look nice for visitors to come and choose their their livestock and act as a display for myself to enjoy also. Each section of the aquarium represent a 220 gallon(6'x2'x2.5) tank custom made that I order oversea which will come late in October. I will also have smaller tanks to house some breeding pairs, hospital, and quarantine tanks. I will have some tank with arowanas and altum angel F1 that I am getting from Vietnam. This will be located in my two car garage so I am putting a wall across the garage doors and completely insulated. I am moving in 2 weeks and start building it. That's a good idea about enclosing the sink Rick :).

[John_Nicholson]

Whats your plan for humidity? Dehumidifiers work but also produce a lot of heat.

-john

[vandiscus]

Hi John,

I have 2 dehumidifiers in hand and I am thinking of tapping into the new house heating system. The new house also come with HRS (Heat recovery system ) or heat exchanger that I can connect to that can get rid of the humidity but maintain the heat. All the tank will be cover to minimize humidity. Thanks
Vansu

[DonMD]

Looks great. I assume you'll have lots of plumbing, water storage and aging barrels, nets, hoses, misc., where will all that be? Right now the drawing looks remarkably clean and uncluttered, so I'm guessing you'll have access to the tanks from behind, maybe? Is that a tile floor? Hopefully it won't get slippery if water spills. Just some thoughts. I look forward to seeing the progression of this room! Thanks. -Don

[vandiscus]

Hi Don. Yes everything you've mentioned will be in the back room. I haven't decided on the finished flooring yet but as of now it will be tile. Thanks Don. Vansu

[rickztahone]

Hi Don. Yes everything you've mentioned will be in the back room. I haven't decided on the finished flooring yet but as of now it will be tile. Thanks Don. Vansu

Tile is better than wood because you will spill water on the floor and that isn't good for wood. Obviously you want to avoid rug, so I think the best option is indeed tile.

[jdhuyvetter]

Ditto what rickztahone said. I put a beautiful walnut hardwood floor down in an extra bedroom. A year later, had the bright idea to turn it into a fish room. Three years later, everything is out of the room and I am getting ready to rip up a very warped floor.

Go with Tile or bare concrete.

[vandiscus]

The same reason I am picking the tile floor because I tend to spills a lot of water when I am cleaning the tanks. If I leave the bare concrete would that be a bit cold in the winter? I am thinking of raising the floor off the concrete floor and inch or two and put foam insulation.

[Jack L]

Hi John,

I have 2 dehumidifiers in hand and I am thinking of tapping into the new house heating system. The new house also come with HRS (Heat recovery system ) or heat exchanger that I can connect to that can get rid of the humidity but maintain the heat. All the tank will be cover to minimize humidity. Thanks
Vansu

the "free" humidity would be nice in the winter...no? in summer doesn't the AC remove it?

[Jack L]

Ditto what rickztahone said. I put a beautiful walnut hardwood floor down in an extra bedroom. A year later, had the bright idea to turn it into a fish room. Three years later, everything is out of the room and I am getting ready to rip up a very warped floor.

Go with Tile or bare concrete.

stained concrete to a better look

[Jack L]

The same reason I am picking the tile floor because I tend to spills a lot of water when I am cleaning the tanks. If I leave the bare concrete would that be a bit cold in the winter? I am thinking of raising the floor off the concrete floor and inch or two and put foam insulation.

tile on top of concrete will be just as cold. i know from experience.

unless you heat the tile

[vandiscus]

Hi Jack,
In the summer it doesn't get too hot in Toronto, Canada. We have some hot days in the summer with 31-32 degree C. I planned to raise the floor off the concrete floor and insulate underneath. Thank you for the awesome suggestions guys :).

[Jack L]

Hi Jack,
In the summer it doesn't get too hot in Toronto, Canada. We have some hot days in the summer with 31-32 degree C. I planned to raise the floor off the concrete floor and insulate underneath. Thank you for the awesome suggestions guys :).

i have seen they make waterproof laminate. i did regular laminate once, it is not cold underfoot. it was much tougher than real wood too. i would not do regular laminate near water, the fiberboard acts like a sponge and swells when wet

[MKD]

Cant wait to see final result of it. Its fun and excited to do such thing like this. Are you going to be importer?

[vandiscus]

Hi Tony,

I am getting fish from Jackson Keong( Malaysia) and Hoang Watabe(Vietnam). I am hoping to improve the quality of discus fish that we have here in Canada, especially in Toronto.

[April]

don't paint the concrete unless you get the right thing. I was advised on a deck paint for my cement floor in my grooming shop. of course it got a lot of traffic but..it didn't last more than two years. another option is those rubber floors that look like wood that safeway has in all their stores. but costly.
laminate CURLS if wet.

[vandiscus]

Hi April,

Yes I am definitely not going with laminate because I had previous experience of spills and it totally destroy my laminate floor. Thanks April.

[jawfish]

Looking forward to seing more Van... nice showroom concept.

If you decide to paint the cement floor with a 2 part epoxy I suggest you had a little bit more aluminium oxide then what they normally sell you. A little bit more but not to much... if you put too much it changes the texture of the floor and its just too effective since moping it will be a pain ;-)

Cheers
Fred

[vandiscus]

Hi Fred,

Thank you for your advice. I didn't know about the 1 and 2 part epoxy..now I do :). Where should I purchase the 2 part epoxy? Home Depot?

Vansu

[jawfish]

Hi Van... always buy 2 part. Stay away from the water base kit they sell at home depot it not resistant enough as you do not get enough thickness. Costco had a great kit a few years ago. It was about 300$ for a double car garage. I bought extra paint flakes and aluminium oxide. The floor I did is now 5 years old and has held very well. To do it well its a 2 man job... I think we spent several hours rehearsing before actually doing it. You only have 30 minutes to get the job done. Personally I thought it was a simple job because of yhe planning we did. To get it done they were going to charge about 2500 $ for the same quality of materials... you do need to prep the floor before.

If you want to find out more about these I suggest you visit thegaragejournal.com forum... This is where I got my info.

Cheers
Fred

[vandiscus]

You're right Fred. The epoxy from Costco got great reviews unlike the one from Home Depot. Wow! they charge $2500 for doing epoxy for the garage? Maybe we should change our jobs. There seem to be a lot of videos on youtube and it doesn't seem that hard:). Thanks again Fred.

[jawfish]

No problem Van.

The trick is surface preperation and having a plan when applying. I admitt that it was a very satisfying project.

What kind of filtration are you planning to use for your showroom ?

Cheers.
Fred

[vandiscus]

Hi Fred, I am going to try the fluidized filter. I am going to do waterchange at least 2 times a day so the filter is mostly a backup plan.

[vandiscus]

Just an update on the fishroom. We moved in to the new house and the garage was full of stuff and so the fishroom was moved to the basement. I am glad that we end up in the basement because it made everything easier. I got utility sink installed, electrical outlets. 2 heating vens from the furnace was an extra bonus. At the moment, there are around 500 gallons running with sumps and spongefilters. Each tank are plumb for easy waterchange. The basement maintain a temperature of 84f no problem. I will post some update photos soon.

[sjaquatik]

Best wishes with the fish room Van

[vandiscus]

Thank you.
Best wishes with the fish room Van