Building a new fish room in Seattle

[FischAutoTechGarten]

Aug 30 you wrote: "The reason I have the compliment of tanks I have is because I am buying used tanks from a breeder and got a great deal." and "I will be picking up my tanks and building materials this weekend". How could I have understood "I am buying" written on Aug 30th, meant that you had already "bought" them prior to Aug 29th? I didn't see any followup, so I thought perhaps you hadn't picked up the tanks the coming weekend as you had intended. My purpose was to help you to avoid the same purchasing mistakes I had made in the past and not a critique of your fishkeeping skills. So I "popped in" with a negative critique of a purchasing decision, like you "hoped".

So, let's put this foolish quibble over puchases and symantics aside. You've got a fair amount of space to work with, which is awesome. (I made the mistake of being too cramped, 6'X16' which dampened my enthusiasm for regular maintenance and orderliness.) What are you thinking about for pairs and grow-outs now that you've acquired some larger tanks? Fish room builds are always fun!

[captmorgan23]

yeah its all good...I am sitting at a total of about 50 tanks...3 55's a 40 and 4 70's can be used as growouts, and I will have room for more if I need them. I built two double racks for the 20's and 30's and plan on starting with about four pairs. I have a pair now and will be grabbing some more pairs, probably from the sponsors on here. I have all the plumbing figured out for a very simple water change system which should make fish room chores much easier...I will post better pics as I go. I have been getting mixed feedback on the growout tanks, as many people have told me to "pack them in" and I have seen similar advice on some threads in here...thoughts?


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[TURQ64]

I missed most of this, but...large tanks, few small tanks, and aisles that are big enough to remove the largest tank you own once you are up and running in case of breakage, leaks, changeouts..just some thoughts......

[mmorris]

I use 29s for breeding pairs and 55s for growing up to two inches, when they go up for sale. I use a 125 gallon for growing out to adulthood, and I wish I had a couple more of them. One or two 10 or 20 gallon tanks might be useful for medicating.

[FischAutoTechGarten]

70's and 75's are a nice size for bare bottom growout... Permits you to reach the far back corners without soaking yourself while providing decent realestate for fish... I found my 70 much easier to clean than the 29's I had turned narrow side out and stacked sideways.

Alas, I never had a 70 for growout....rather it was a display tank that was eventually replaced by a 120... Years later, this same 120 did end up being a growout in a pinch.... what a pain... too much rapid food distribution resulting in allot of cleanup...it's a chore to clean the netherreaches of 4'x2'x2' tank once a day. Was wishing I still had the 70. My sense is that it is possible to go too big with your growout tanks that are going to be housing fish smaller than 2". But many with the 6' wide 125 gallon growouts would argue otherwise...and they succeeded where I failed...so if they say "go big", I won't contradict them.

Will be cool to see how you arrange and plumb your initial breeder and growout tanks. You've done big fishrooms in the past, so I look forward to seeing what you engineer. To start you'll have 4 of the 20's for breeders and 4 of the 70's for growouts?

The one thing that I did correctly (eventually)..that I always pass on...was to paint all of my stands with a high quality oil based paint...several coats..with lots of drying time between them.... resulting in a thorough, non-stick, cure. I chose a nice darker sage/evergreen that looked really good and made quick cleanups easy without resulting in any staining/warping/smelling. It also permitted me to use old junk wood alongside brand new wood, without looking hobbled together. My tank rack, water storage stand and workcenter all looked neat and uniform which went a long way with my wife, who permitted me to spend even more money. The other thing was to put all of my legs on hockey pucks like the Canadian hobbyist recommended.

Granted I had a very damp cold workspace (basement in upstate NY), coupled with my propensity to spill allot of water, so water resistivity was high up on my requirements. Unfortunately, my wife and I found that my dehumidifier with it's built-in sump pump for "Pete's Skanky Basement o' Fish" was consuming about $80 a month in electricity. Couldn't have picked a worse basement for a small breeding rack. The foregiving commercial space you have is probably a much better idea! But if moisture is a problem (you are in Seattle), painting/sealing the racks might not be a bad idea before you set and fill everything with water.