curiousphil
Super Active Member
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2013
- Location
- London, Ontario
I have decided to start a new thread for my new build. As I've mentioned in other threads, my 1.5 yr old 90 gallon reef tank recently developed a minor leak. Around the same time, we had a new on-demand hot water heater/boiler combo unit installed that replaced our existing hot water tank and the boiler for our radiant heat - with a tiny little unit that hangs on the wall... way cool! This freed up an 8 square foot area of our basement and rendered a dividing wall between our second kitchen and the hot water area obsolete.
Given these two recent developments, we've decided to renovate the basement. Get rid of the second kitchen, rip out the dividing wall, and turn the new 17 by 17 foot area into an entertainment room with an in-wall reef tank!
I've been spending the past few days doing up a project plan, creating a budget, and beginning to rearrange things in the basement. We have been using the downstairs kitchen as a storage area since we moved in last August. With Beth and I each bringing a whole house worth of stuff with us, we were overwhelmed and just decided to put a lot of it out of sight. Well, now the time has come where we need to deal with it... I'm going to order a dumpster this week for the demo materials and we are also going to do a big purge. Anything that doesn't get purged will be moved to a new storage area we just prepped today over on the other side of the basement. I had to haul out some ancient furniture that was left behind by the old Polish lady who sold us the house. Man old furniture is heavy!!
When the dumpster arrives this week, the purge will begin. Once the kitchen is empty it's demo time. One wall will be coming out completely, the other will be getting moved over to be against the side wall of the basement so that I can drywall over it. The tank wall will be built with BluWood and the green mold-resistant drywall typically used in bathrooms. That wall sits parallel to the back wall of the basement and creates a corridor that is approximately 6 feet wide. This will be the fish room.
Today I placed an order today for a custom 225 gallon tank: 72 x 30 x 24 inches, with a coast to coast overflow and a 4" external overflow box where I will install a beananimal drain. This tank will sit on top of a 3 foot high steel stand that I intend to seal with truck bed liner paint, which seems to have a good track record over on Reef Central for protecting steel stands against the damaging effects of saltwater. I've learned a lot with my 90 gallon and one of the things I've learned is to plan for the worst - expect leak at some point in the future!! I'm going to install a door to the fish room area that has a 4" lip up from the floor, and the floor of the fish room will be covered with a pond liner that goes up the wall 4 inches. So any leaks or spills should be contained within the liner. I'm going to be running a heavy duty dehumidifier in that area and am trying to convince the S.O. to let me ventilate that room straight to the outside of the house. She's worried that a random hole in the house will reduce value should we ever decide to sell (which is fair... the tank will likely come out if the house is sold).
While building my 90 gallon tank I always kept in mind that someday I wanted to have a larger tank, so wherever possible I bought oversized equipment. Large reactors, intense lighting, powerful pumps. I am hoping that most of the equipment I currently have will also be suitable for the new tank. One thing I know that I will unfortunately have to upgrade is my skimmer. At some point I want to install 400 watt halides but my 250s will do for now.
I think that's all I have to share for now... except for some "before" pictures.
The old hot water heater and boiler:
New combo unit:
The newly empty area: (which the kitchen will expand into... the wall you see on the left is the one that will be moving)
The much - too - full kitchen: (my S.O. is a bit of a couponing fiend and has amassed a large stash that we need to deal with) (tank will be installed in the wall with the window that has the vertical post in front of it)
Given these two recent developments, we've decided to renovate the basement. Get rid of the second kitchen, rip out the dividing wall, and turn the new 17 by 17 foot area into an entertainment room with an in-wall reef tank!
I've been spending the past few days doing up a project plan, creating a budget, and beginning to rearrange things in the basement. We have been using the downstairs kitchen as a storage area since we moved in last August. With Beth and I each bringing a whole house worth of stuff with us, we were overwhelmed and just decided to put a lot of it out of sight. Well, now the time has come where we need to deal with it... I'm going to order a dumpster this week for the demo materials and we are also going to do a big purge. Anything that doesn't get purged will be moved to a new storage area we just prepped today over on the other side of the basement. I had to haul out some ancient furniture that was left behind by the old Polish lady who sold us the house. Man old furniture is heavy!!
When the dumpster arrives this week, the purge will begin. Once the kitchen is empty it's demo time. One wall will be coming out completely, the other will be getting moved over to be against the side wall of the basement so that I can drywall over it. The tank wall will be built with BluWood and the green mold-resistant drywall typically used in bathrooms. That wall sits parallel to the back wall of the basement and creates a corridor that is approximately 6 feet wide. This will be the fish room.
Today I placed an order today for a custom 225 gallon tank: 72 x 30 x 24 inches, with a coast to coast overflow and a 4" external overflow box where I will install a beananimal drain. This tank will sit on top of a 3 foot high steel stand that I intend to seal with truck bed liner paint, which seems to have a good track record over on Reef Central for protecting steel stands against the damaging effects of saltwater. I've learned a lot with my 90 gallon and one of the things I've learned is to plan for the worst - expect leak at some point in the future!! I'm going to install a door to the fish room area that has a 4" lip up from the floor, and the floor of the fish room will be covered with a pond liner that goes up the wall 4 inches. So any leaks or spills should be contained within the liner. I'm going to be running a heavy duty dehumidifier in that area and am trying to convince the S.O. to let me ventilate that room straight to the outside of the house. She's worried that a random hole in the house will reduce value should we ever decide to sell (which is fair... the tank will likely come out if the house is sold).
While building my 90 gallon tank I always kept in mind that someday I wanted to have a larger tank, so wherever possible I bought oversized equipment. Large reactors, intense lighting, powerful pumps. I am hoping that most of the equipment I currently have will also be suitable for the new tank. One thing I know that I will unfortunately have to upgrade is my skimmer. At some point I want to install 400 watt halides but my 250s will do for now.
I think that's all I have to share for now... except for some "before" pictures.
The old hot water heater and boiler:
New combo unit:
The newly empty area: (which the kitchen will expand into... the wall you see on the left is the one that will be moving)
The much - too - full kitchen: (my S.O. is a bit of a couponing fiend and has amassed a large stash that we need to deal with) (tank will be installed in the wall with the window that has the vertical post in front of it)
. It is going to be a ton of work, but I like keeping busy with big projects. And once this is done I'll have an awesome space to relax in as I work on the rest of our upstairs improvements!! 
