New house new tank

[Raphael.dalmeida]

Hi guys,

I am currently building a new house and my partner gave me a white flag for getting a new tank for my discus with a decent budget ($2500).
Tank will have only a fine layer of sand on the bottom and perhaps very little hard scape and only tankmate besides discus likely to be rummynose tetras and dwarf plecos.

I thought of making a Tank and incorporate an indoor bar area (drinking) near it. I am looking for ideas here from concept to functionality (i already looked a lot in the internet though its tough to stick to one).

The tank i will get a local to build it and i am looking towards a tank with a sump system, not sure if overflow on the back or central overflow. Will have a drain and a water access inbuilt nearby specially for the tank.
Attached is the floor plan of where the tank will be and i have the area near the stairs with the blue square to work with.


What do you guys think ? I am looking for a really nice setup to have a nice relaxing area where i can sit have a drink and enjoy my fish. Simultaneously access needs to be easy for maintenance.
Not sure if i should make a square tank in the center or a rectangular on the side of the stairs or on the wall. so it's quite difficult for me to thing of how it would look like

The living room will have a high ceiling 4 metres.

Not sure if this is the appropriate space to put this up though it didnt seem to fit anywhere else. What are your experiences and if you have a similar setup or seen something that you think its cool and would like to share would be great.

Thanks a lot guys!

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[coralbandit]

I love when people build their house with the aquarium as part of the plan !
Talk to your builder about the tanks weight so you can find out if near the stairwell is possible .
In most modern building this is not a problem but it is best if the builder knows your plans and the requirements .
Can't wait to watch progress of both builds !
Keep us posted ..

[Willie]

I've never done this, but this is my chance to live vicariously through your experience.

To stretch your budget, I would not go with a custom tank - which will easily run $2,500. I'd go with a tall tank to show off the discus, something 30" high. Anything higher may be difficult to maintain. A 110 gal is 30" high, 4' across and 18" deep, while a 150 gal is similar, but 6' across. Something like this will run ~$600 and give you room to do all the support stuff. You'll need piping to set up for water conditioning and water changes. You'll also need smaller tanks to raise discus to the size to put into a large tank. Small discus are crowded from birth and react badly when put into a large tank immediately.

Having walked many discus fishrooms, I most prize the ones where you can sink into a large couch and stare at the fish.

Hope that gives you some ideas, Willie

[CliffsDiscus]

I know a Discus breeder that moved into a new house he claims that his breeding program
now is dead because of the copper pipes.
I mention that he might check with
Calligan.

Cliff

[pastry]

Cliff, I believe nowadays most of us have copper pipes to an extent within standard tap water plumbing. PVC is usually the person that people see but somewhere along the line I'm pretty sure most people have some copper piping somewhere mixed in with that PVC plumbing.

[pastry]

Raphael,
Definitely can't wait to see how it turns out! My dream would be something similar and if I had that location within a new house then knowing me I would take the risk and do a hybrid custom/ply+mortar tank. 2 walls I'd mortar/ply and the left hand side and top side of that tank when looking at your picture is where I would have glass. For the corner I would use thick piece of wood with slots 4 each side of the glass to perfectly fit into grooves. A big chunk of money from that would be the glass and honestly I would try to find a expert who can come do the Silicon portion because I don't trust myself with doing experiments with that much water within my own house. Murphy's Law is not a fan of me! But still, it might be doable in that budget. I'd leave the top wide open and have one big Mangrove type of trunk coming out of the water (fish swimming between roots + hiding plumbing) with some Ivy growing around it. Probably would use several suspended LED lights from the ceiling. Do everything following the KISS method + over engineer and support.

[coralbandit]

Many new homes use PEX unless code dictates copper..$$$$

[two utes]

Good luck with your build.

I like that you are planing your new tank combined with a bar, giving you more than one reason to bring plumbing and drains into that upstairs area. I imagine you will have a little sink in there somewhere that will come in handy when cleaning items associated with the tank. I also agree with Willie about purchasing a 30 inch high standard, not custom tank, saving money to incorporate other features in that area.
I'm thinking that you will want to put the tank against that bottom wall so it faces the rest of the house, but if you're thinking about having it adjacent to the stair well, maybe you can have a false wall built with the tank flush mounted in it and a door to access the tank from the other side...just a though.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Good luck

[Raphael.dalmeida]

Hi guys thanks for all the feedback and ideas a lot of things I definitely didn't think before!

It's funny the most difficult part it's conceptualizing because it's a blank canvas. Though also the most important probably.

I was thinking of having it big at least 6x2x2... Possibly 2.5 height as some of you guys suggested.
(Not too big as I don't want to have to jump in to make maintenance lol).

Here in QLD - Australia besides custom tanks on this size probably only able to find used tanks which some of them are alright though Ive been looking for something display quality, good seams etc.

What are your thoughts ? Indeed most of the money would be on the building of the tank.

As some of you mentioned I've been also thinking of making it into the stairs and closing it off having that be my little maintenance room.

The main things for me to consider will be:

1-practical maintenance.
2-the living room area needs to be a place where I want to stay and chill so I enjoy the fruit of all this work 😁 (that's why I thought of an indoor bar).

So the budget will be likely most for the whole tank setup itself. The area furniture bar etc will be out of other budget.

I thought of a few options of placement.
Stairs side, wall side, middle, flush into a wall.

Also I will have a few smaller tanks somewhere else (that I already have) for me to raise fry and quarantine.

It'll be still quite a while till then, currently we are digging/cutting the land to get ready for concrete slab.

[Kruss]

That’s kind of how I did mine when I built my house . But I did a tank room in behind the tank so it’s like a storage room and tank room. Make sure you plumb for it to be easy as possible . Sink, FLOOR drain for sure. No new house will have copper. I would have put the sump and pumps into a different location or the house if I could do it a again. But I’ve got all the noise basically figured out at this point. 2,500$ you will not make it on a custom build for that cheap. You have to keep the glass to 1/2 or less for sure for price. I ended up doing 3/4 because I had to was a huge expense. I would do sump just to keep the tank clean looking of stuff for sure and you can pack it with nitrate reduction. GL will be a lot of work but have fun