The "Jools' new fishroom post"

[MatsP]

Certainly looks better than my fish-room.

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Mats

[Jools]

Well, it's not got much in it yet, but plans are afoot! Hopefully get some racking installed at the end of May. The display tank will be July I think - currently this is going to be a 2m tank.

Jools

[Jools]

Some updated pics.

1) Sink (shower head tap for getting into mucky filter boxes), storage, freezer and ipod player for the other end of the room. Walls not painted yet, tiles still to go up.

2) Fishroom with existing tanks in it. The plan is to move them into racking and then the display tank goes in where they are on the left wall as you look at it.

Just got the quote for the racking so may well be taking the DIY route!

Jools

[Moosipher]

Looking seriously cool so far. Can I ask.. what are the dimensions of the tanks you are using at present.. and to which tanks will you be transferring the fish you relocate during the move?
Oh.. and can I visit when you get finished?

[andywoolloo]

any updates?

[Jools]

Looking seriously cool so far. Can I ask.. what are the dimensions of the tanks you are using at present.. and to which tanks will you be transferring the fish you relocate during the move?
Oh.. and can I visit when you get finished?

There are a few tanks, most of which are listed in "my aquaria" with their dimensions there. The big ones you see in the photo directly above are 48l x 18h x 30d.

Jools

[Jools]

any updates?

I have been busy in the fishroom, but busy in the real world too, so I'm afraid updates have been missing. I will try and update this week.

Jools

[Jools]

A long overdue update...

Looking down the room, discus tank in the foreground left, at the back left is the tank with the spawning Pseudohemiodon, but it shows the racking nicely.



Looking back to the position the first pic was taken from, he we see sink, worktop and cupboards.


You can see the display tank cutout in the wall (new living room on the other side), this will be operational for Xmas (I hope!).


On Wednesday I plan to put in the surface mounted drainage and more tanks into the racking, I am just waiting for the black floor paint to dry on them.

Jools

[Marc van Arc]

Very nice. It's beginning to look like a small shop
I like the wall colouration as well. Amazing what "some" extra space does to a fish room.

[worton[pl]]

Hey,

do you have any special ventilation system in your fishroom Jools?
On the begining of spring I'm starting to do my own fish room but I really have serious problems with fungus on walls now and with more tanks it will probably get even worser

Btw everything looks great!
Regards.

[bronzefry]

Jools,
That is an insanely serious fishroom.The rack system seals the deal for me. Nice color.
Amanda

[AndrewC]

Jools
I see you have your priorities right, get the fish room sorted, then worry about the living room LOL !

[Mixalis]

Can't wait to see it done!!!

[andywoolloo]

looks nice! i like the colour too and the light and the poster and the signs!

[Shane]

Looking great and can't wait to see it. I love that the display tank actually sits inside the fish room itself. Brilliant.
-Shane

[Jools]

Do you have any special ventilation system in your fishroom Jools?

I have a powerful extractor fan which sucks air to the outside of the house, and I used (expensive) bathroom paint (green) with anti-fungus all over. I use well fitting glass cover glass on all tanks and I believe that makes a serious difference. However it is still ventilated by the large opening for the display tank. Time will tell if that when that is sealed, if I have an indoor swamp or not.

Jools

[Jools]

Jools,
That is an insanely serious fishroom.The rack system seals the deal for me. Nice color.
Amanda

The wood is pre-treated timber with a bickeyload of additional wood preserver sucked in. Seriously I used about four large containers of preserver on the wood before then staining it the dark colour you see. That took 10 days, you wouldn't believe how many surfaces a rack like that has to paint!

The rack takes the following tanks:

4 @ 48"x15"x15"
4 @ 30"x15"x15"
4 @ 24"x15"x15"
2 @ 11"x15"x15"
2 @ 48"x15"x12"
2 @ 30"x15"x12"
2 @ 24"x15"x12"
1 @ 11x15x12"

The room also holds

2 @ 48"x30"x18"
2 @ 30"x12"x12"
1 @ 36"x15"x15"
1 @ 36"x12"x15"

The display tank will be 72"x18"x28" and there are some smaller tanks too.

Jools

[Jools]

A fishroom disaster this morning. I left a hose running last night. That means the large tank with a lot of my "special" fish in it has now been water changed down to 55F. The fish are all lying motionless on the bottom, I think they are all dead.

This act of extreme stupidity sees the death of my 15 year old lancers, Dianema and Corydoras I collected in Peru, a pair (as in male and female) Squaliforma I collected in Venezuela at 2" long and were now both nearly a foot long, a really odd Argentinian pleco I never ID'ed and a bunch of other cool fish. I am gutted. I've dropped the water level to 50% and put 700watts of heating in there to bring it back up to 80F. I don't see anything even twitching.

Many of those fish met Shane, Dinyar, Marc, Mats and other forum regulars over the years. They're all in the cat-elog many being photographed by Johnny Jensen.

I would prefer if we didn't have a lot of consoling posts. I don't need to be reminded how stupid I've been - I just needed to get it out somewhere.

What would be a useful discussion would be how to prevent this. Does anyone know of a timed flow shutoff valve or a pressure sensitive one or anything fancy to limit water flow from a hose? The new tanks are built now so that when water changing, new water comes in and flows out to the drain at the same time...

I need to ensure I never do this again.

Jools

[Jools]

How about drilling/making some holes into the hose at a certain point. The water from the tank will then be sucked out until that point is reached and will then stop because the hose will start sucking air.
I have a PVC-leveller between one tank and its filter that works like that. The idea was from Sid.

The issue, I think, is the water coming in. I can't hear it or see it except by sitting in front of the tank watching the water slowly rise (some might say I should just do that for every water change and never let myself be distracted - no mobile phones in the fishroom which is what "caused" last nights disaster - it went off I had a long conversation with the caller and then forgot the thing was still running and went to assist Clare with something and forgot...).

I guess something like a sensor that when the tip of the hose gets submerged, then it stops the flow.

Jools

[MatsP]

As you can see in my post here on building a sump system, I use a overflow system to keep the water level. I let it trickle slowly (which is automatic, as the water flows through the RO system, but there's nothing preventing it coming directly from a slow-running tap).

If the tank is drilled to have an overflow outlet, you could simply have a hose or pipe that trickles water into each tank. If you don't want a continuous water change (mine is changing all the water about 4-6 times a week at the current flow-rate on the two tanks it's connected to at the moment, but I will probably distribute the water onto more tanks in the future), just have a tap that you can turn on and off as you need it.

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Mats

[Marc van Arc]

The issue, I think, is the water coming in.

True, which is why I deleted my posting, but somehow you manage to retrieve it (?).

[MatsP]

The issue, I think, is the water coming in.

True, which is why I deleted my posting, but somehow you manage to retrieve it (?).

Jools CAN retrieve deleted posts, but I don't think he would do that. It's more likely that he replied before you deleted it.

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Mats

[TP]

Maybe an alternative way of doing things would be to put a temperature sensor into the system which at a predetermined temp could activate a shutoff valve to stop the flow of the cold water. It could also be wired back to some sort of alarm to give an alert that this had been done.

[Jools]

just have a tap that you can turn on and off as you need it.

That's the point though, I have all that, but I forgot to turn off the tap...

Jools

[Jools]

An update on the chilled fish disaster. I undertook the task of removing all decor from the tank, lots of bodies which I have left in the tank for now as it warms up. The Argentine pleco was still breathing very,very slowly - so much so I missed it at first. It is now breathing slowly but assuredly. Rather miraculously, one of the Squaliforma is breathing very slowly now too. Everything else however does appear to be beyond recovery. I will keep you posted.

[Borbi]

Hi Jools,

there is this stuff used in toilets and called "Schwimmerventil" (which translates to something like "swimming valve") that is used by several people to regulate valves feeding RO units or water storage tanks, for example. It´s a simple mechanism that opens the circuit if water drops below a certain level and closes it if the valve actually starts to "swim" (like when the storage tank of a toilet is filled up again). Those are available in DIY-shops and probably close to what you are looking for.
Perhaps, you want to try one of these to stop such things happening at least in the "big tank"? Probably not useful to equip every single tank with such a thing, though.

Hope that helps,

Cheers, Sandor

[Bas Pels]

personally, I use thermostatic taps. I have them at 27 C (~70 F) all the time.

They prevent the water getting hotter - and thus I can open the tap without any worry about temperature problems. However, I can not change water at a trickle rate, I need to really open the tap

They costed 300 euros, thus 250 pounds at the current exchange rate. The nice thing is, in an existing fishroom one can still intall one

[Jools]

That's interesting, it might work here, but what I think I want is an electronic safety shut off, something that switches off the tap after a preset time (say, 5 minutes or, thinking about it, after a certain volume of water has passed). If anyone knows of such a thing let me know otherwise I will search the internet...

Jools

[Borbi]

Hi,

that should be possible with a simple magnetic valve that is closed by default without electricity and a cheap timer most people use to automatically switch tank lights. That should be able switch off the magnetic valve after any given amount of time.

Cheers, Sandor

[MatsP]

just have a tap that you can turn on and off as you need it.

That's the point though, I have all that, but I forgot to turn off the tap...

Jools

Yes, my point was that by filling and emptying rather slowly (like maybe a dozen liters an hour), the heater will have enough time to heat up the water before the fish gets too cold. But it does assume that there's a overflow that the water flows out of at the same time as it's filling up. Obviously, if you need to vacuum out some crud at the bottom, it will slowly regain it's level. The tap is just there to allow you to STOP the filling up.

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Mats