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New fish room/breeder!!! NEW VIDEO 11-11-13!!!!!

113K views 574 replies 143 participants last post by  Clear Water 
#1 · (Edited)
In the process of building my own fish room something i always wanted to do. I am setting up 20- 75gallon, 30- 29gallon, and 20- 10 gallon. I am going to breed angels, discus, rams, and guppies mainly. I plan on doing some oscars but i have heard they take a little time. The water by me is from a well and has ph of 6.5 so its perfect for South American ciclids. Im getting building spray foamed next weekend and then i will start racks and order tanks.

LIGHTING... All tanks will get cfl bulbs..some 1, some 2.
HEATING.... All tanks will get a heater determined by size of tank.
WATER CHANGES.... I am going to put 1" bulk heads in all tanks and run a water inlet f9r each tank. That way all i have to is turn water on and let it go out. I am going to use a 50 gallon water heater and put a valve on the hot and cold outlet of tank. Then i am going t9 put a temp probe and adjust valves till water mixture is 78 degrees. From thereit will go to water lines throughout the room.
FILTRATION.... setting up central air using linear pump and using sponge filters.

Heres a couple pics of my work so far... any suggestions or concerns will be helpful.









 
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#97 ·


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Wood selection:

Now, to set the basis for this, you would have to make an assumption about the type of wood that most persons' 2x4 would be made from. After a little research, you will soon find that the most common form of wood that is used for construction lumber is pine. From there, I pulled a little data regarding the tensile strength of various woods. (Seenhere (http://www.woodbin.com/ref/wood/strength_table.htm))

For this discussion, I decided to go with the norm, pine. I also chose to use the weakest pine available, which would be eastern white pine. Now, eastern white pine, which will further be referred to as just pine, has a perpendicular compression rate of 440 psi. This is the weight that is placed upon the wood when it is used for vertical support of an aquarium stand. The parallel compression strength is much higher, so there won't be a need to address it in this analysis as it will not be the weak link in the chain.

The design behind the 2x4 stand:

There is one common design for an aquarium stand that is commonly used. I have attached the drawing below. In my opinion, this stand has a couple extra 2x4s in the design, but as stated before, we DIY people like to overbuild things. I will say however, that the green vertical 2x4s are not needed. The purple 2x4s will be more than adequate to support your tank. I recommend saving yourself a couple bucks and removing these from the design.

As you can see by the drawing, the vertical 2x4s support the weight of the tank as it is distributed across the frame. These vertical 2x4s (colored purple) will be the load bearing parts of the stand. They are also the weakest link in the design. In saying this, these vertical supports will be addressed in relation to the ability of a stand to hold weight.

In the design pictured below, there are eight vertical 2x4s. Depending on your stand, you may have more or less in relation to the size and length of your tank. But for those instances, we can simply change a few numbers to evaluate your stand individually.

Credit where credit is due: Pic below came from reef central where the design is explained in detail.

Facts for the discussion:

-The perpendicular compression rate of a2x4 -- 440 psi -The rough end measurements of a 2x4 -- 1.5" x 3.5" -Number of 2x4 in the pictured stand -- 8

The Math behind the discussion:

First, we take the end measurements of the 2x4 and figure the contact area. This is

1.5 * 3.5 = 5.25

This gives us 5.25 square inches of contact are per 2x4.

Second, we figure the total area that will be in contact. Remember that we have eight 2x4s supporting the frame of the tank. So, we multiply the number of 2x4s by the end area of a single 2x4.

8* 5.25 = 42.

We have 42 square inches of contact area.

Third, we bring in the compression rate of the 2x4s in relation to the number of square inches of contact area.

42 * 440 = 18,480.

This tells us that the stand in question will support 18,480lbs, assuming all other factors remain constant.

The verdict:

So our final answer comes to 18,490lbs. As we all know, that is a lot of weight. This would be the equivalent of about 2,200 gallons of water. Right about this time I am going to throw in my disclaimer. I do not recommend pushing the load capacity of a 2x4 to its limit, but it is important to know where you stand in regard to structural support. I personally feel more comfortable using a 1/4 factor when calculating. The would reduce the load capacity to 25% of the rated value. This is what some would refer to as a bit of a safety factor when designing your stand. Let's see where that puts us in regard to our stand by figuring one of two ways;

42 * (440/4) =4,620

18,480 / 4 = 4,620

I think this is a reasonable number that will keep us far inside the safety limits of a2x4. In any case, you would be hard pressed to design an aquarium that would actually reach this stress limit. I would venture to say that is would have to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 48 x 48 x 48. Now, lets keep in mind that a tank of this size would need additional vertical supports in order to support the horizontal frame, thus increasing the load capacity.


Just a lil side not i used spruce not pine and everything is notched and screwed together. Combined weight of 6 75g tanks with water is 3600lbs. This is evenly distributed throughout entire rack. See pics on forum.


 
#99 ·
This is one heck of a build. Just looking at the lap joints it looks like you took your time with them and they're nice and tight. With the care you've taken here I've no doubt the building construction is top notch.
I wouldn't paint the tanks at all. None of the fish farms I've been to down here paint the tanks. Even the ones I bought off a farm are plain.

So if you don't mind. How much do you have in tanks?

Build it up big enough and maybe Meriweather Capital will buy you out. They did it to Ekk Will and Segrest (One of the largest in the world.)

What size is the building? Come on over and finish off mine. It's 95% done.
 
#102 ·
Very exciting to see your progress, quick question - are you drilling the back or bottoms?

You may already have seen this or know about it, but I ran across a thread somewhere that showed someone with a long piece of pvc pipe with a small weight on the end of it. He put the PVC pipe on the arm of the drill and used just enough weight to give it pressure to drill the holes without needing to manually do it. If that makes sense...

Did you decide on a background color?

Keep up the amazing (and hard) work! If were closer, I'd stop by to help :)
 
#113 ·
Try using cleaning gloves instead of the nitrile/vinyl/latex ones.

Whether you put it on with a rag or a brush I can tell you one thing. It's not really a comfort but here goes: Either way takes a LOOOOOONG time.
 
#117 ·
First: awesome.
Second: if you ever try to breed discus just swap out the tank for one with a lighter paint job. Discus fry find their parents by finding the dark spot, that's why albino and snow whites/ whatever's are more expensive. The fry can't locate the parents to feed as easily. Kinda like baby sea turtles going into town because of street lights instead of to sea by moon light.
3rd: if I ever get to do this, at any scale, I will steal all the good ideas you have.

-matt
 
#118 ·
When I first saw this post when you started the thread I was like, oh someone making a fish room blah blah not interested moving on....but WOW its alot bigger than I expected and soooo many tanks, its amazing! Since you are planning on breeding are they going to be blank tanks or do you plan to put substrate and plant/scape them at all because if so that would be incredible.

Are you going to offer tours b/c if I'm ever on a road trip back to New Orleans I'd love to see it all set up in person. You could probably even charge admission.
 
#122 ·
Late on this one. Look at commercial Chicken coups/batrns for ideas. They share simular issues concerning heat/cold and ventilation. Use as much passive environmental controls as you can. Roof vents, insulation, windows that work with the location of the sun, opening sky lights, fans vs. AC,

Central systems (drain/filtration)....Not all the tanks on one....cut it in 1/2 or 1/4s. Good [pont earlier about heating cooling the whole place.
 
#127 ·
it prolly the thickness of the galss and the pressure from the press i would make a small jig to hold the bit in the same place and try to hand drill it

if i run across a picture of the jig i'm talking about ill let to it but what it is is just a hole in a piece of work the size of your bit so that it doesn't walk when drilling the glass

oh and keep the glass wet as the heat will cause it to crack also
 
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