PlanetCatfish.com

Another point on the condensation thing is that I can push or pull air from the house via a grille in the door (if required).

OK, now two things I need to work on. Floor and wall coverings. I am currently going to go for a stone tiled floor - but one that is non-slip - probably something you might use in a bathroom although cost my require that I go for something else.

What about the walls? I feel I need more than just bathroom gloss paint to provide a water seal. I could use silicone sealed plastic boards or just tile the whole thing.

Jools

If you would want it to be water tight, you should use pond coatings, for instance epoxy coating.

The stuff requires 15-25 degrees centigrades, and I had to put 3 layers in my ponds, with 4 hrs between.

Indoors this could quite easily be done, and the amount of square meters (sq feet if yopu like) will not be a problem - it works almost as easily as paint

Regarding the costs - I came down to 15 euro a square meter, thus almost 10 pounds. Pigment can be added if required (I used black)

I put a raised decking in mine and as the concrete floor sloped down to two drains this was great as I could literally just syphon the water onto the floor and off it went to the drain (if I was feeling lazy) or into a wate pipe fixed to one side of the room that went directly to one of the drains.
Matt

grokefish wrote: Too hot in the summer, Too cold in the winter.
Unbelivable amounts of condensation, it runs off the roof

The way to get it to work well as I have found with a little experiment in my shed, which is appx the same size as this fish room is to have an outer layer on the roof, completely sealed, and a lower layer under the roof beams again totally sealed. This gives a good insulation with natural sunlight to boot, but I am waiting for the summer to see how hot it gets in there, I think I will be able to bake cakes in there in then.
Matt

I built a well insultated single skin hut like Matt and have the same problems.
http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... highlight=
I thought having an air gap between the insulation and the outside cladding would help a lot, but it didn't.
If i could do it again, i would use a cavity wall and also build the roof using roof trusses, which will give you a decent air space in the ceiling.

I found an extractor fan running constantly didn't help much, but what i found helped me the best, was a decent rate dehumidifer connected to a constant drain.
Still have condensation marks on the bottom of the walls, but nowhere near as bad as last winter.

As your fish room is in your house, try to conect your drainage to your sewer drain, somehow, you'll have no problems then.
Don't use a run off drain if you will be draining a lot of water during water changes, because your garden will turn into a big puddle.
I used to have a soak away in the field behind my hut for the waste water from my hut, but that failed miserably as it was filling up after draining a few tanks and that was in the summer.
So i ended up running the sink waste straight into the field behind the hut, which is great, and i am lucky it is a field for cows grazing behind my hut, as i have now formed a marsh in the field right behind my hut with all water i have drained.

Have you thought about putting a sink into your room and using a python to drain the water from your tanks, pythons are pretty basic tools, but work great.

If you can store fish-ready water in the roof or otherwise above the tanks (either collected rain or filled from the mains), it will mean you don't need to use any pumps when refilling tanks.

I know it's not always possible, but it's always good to use gravity in place of expending energy if the situation allows.

Well, the awful weather has put a real "dampener" on things and the project is about 3 weeks behind. However, we do have the bones of a new roof...



Jools

Congratulations Jools!!! You seem to be building a great fishroom
Looking forward to see it developing!!!Take your time with the planning and everything...

Btw,great topic,full of usefull info for correctly planning a fishroom!

Yes, a very good contrast to my thread on the matter, I think they should run parallel in an article called: how to build a fish room, and how to make an arse of it.
Matt

Well, it's the wettest January on record since 1913. We had a nine room house, we now have two rooms downstairs that are warm and don't have water variously dripping or pissing into them when it rains. The gale force winds mean that the builders can't work on some parts of the roof and other parts they have to harness themselves onto the structure at times. The new roof is now two weeks behind schedule. Clare is spending the weekends at her parents and I am spending a lot of time emptying buckets of water. There is one room left in the house which has not been damaged or altered (or had a roof or wall removed) so far.

For a laugh a few days ago I measured all the water I collected from the leaks. It was 312 litres in one day (7am - 9pm).

So, I don't have much to report on the actual fishroom, this nonsense with leaks should be at an end next week and then I can start thinking about the fun stuff again.

Jools

Maybe we should just meet in London when I come up... Drumcross will rise from the floods.
-Shane

any new pictures on the fish room? I am thinking of painting my fish room with Exterior paint... as it is designed to weather seal the outside of a house and should work great to seal the inside. You can buy really expensive epoxy paints for very moist environments too. Just talk to your local paint supply house.

Hi guys,

im in the process of setting up my fish room and i was wondering if anyone has ever considered using a dehumidifier to stop dampness? iv read through this thread and no-one seems to mention it?

cheers,

andrew

Hi everybody.

I've just discovered this topic and I thought I could give you some "tested for you" ideas. I had the same questionning as Jools 3 years ago, when we built our house. From the beginning it was planned to have a fish-room in the underground. I made a serie of pictures during the building and the installation of the tanks. Actually, it runs from February 2006, with a total of 4 tanks (160 / 300 / 375 / 1600 litres) and several growing, testing, planted, and so on smaller tanks...

If you agree, I could place a few pictures of "my" tricks to avoid damping, smellings and such "usual" problems, linked to a fish-room installation.

Anyway, nice topic...

Eltofi:

I would love to see your pictures and your work to head off the "usual" problems. I have a room that I hope will eventually become a fish room. Would like to see your approach.

"A picture is worth a thousand words" - Napoleon

Happy hobbying,
Vriesea

Hello all,

I've just lost the whole text I had been writing for the last 20 minutes just because I forgot to save it... I'm mad... never mind, here is a shorter version...

Being synthetic :
- fishroom of 25 m2
- 3 air vents : 2 are simply "holes" in the upper part of the right and of the left walls, the third is a window
- 5 tanks : 120 l. Hospital, 160 l Chaetostoma sp L402, 300 l Hypancistrus sp L66, 375 l Hemiancistrus sp L128, 1600 l "Xingu suckermouths & Retroculus"
- 2 nurseries (54 l) : actually Hypancistrus L66 + Pseudacanthicus sp L320 growing
- all tanks open with low lighting
- 1 water evacuation in the middle of the room, on the floor
- the room is not heated, but is in the underground of the house

Positives points :
- never had "damping" or smells, or any problem linked to humidity although the 12 liters a day of evaporation (for the big tank only)
- I can have different temperatures in every tank

Negatives points :
- in winter, the natural venting increases sensibily the electricity note (up to € 1.30 per day), due to heating particularly.

Project :
- a rain water collector, directly from the roof, through a PVC drain pipe which comes in the fishroom by one of the air vent. Problem : how to ensure the water quality ?

here you can see the waste water evacuation and the "nursery shelf", with above it the second air vent. Depending on the wind ouside, the air flow is from left to right or the opposite.

Bonus (for me and whom may be interessted) : juveniles of L320 and L66 in the same nursery

what size is that tank on the last pic in the post right before the one above this one? In gallons?

((Drool))

Hi Andywoolloo,

the tank is a 1600 liters, so around 420 US gallons and 350 UK gallons. It's a 320x70x70 cm (around 126x28x28 inches).

I thought this was a huge tank... till I discover a member of the Lausanne Club (Switzerland) who drives a 4000 liters (1056 US gallons : built in concrete and glass) with Osphronemus goramy...

you can always find someone more crazy than you are

126x28x28 420 us gals

wow.. incredible..u are so lucky.

It's been a long time since I last posted, so here is an update on progress.

Here I am draining one of the larger tanks so that I can knock down the wall behind it.



Temporary tank in the new hall which is being filled with water from the old tank



Draining, draining, draining...



Tank now moved and wall removed.



Standing in new living room looking into fishroom through cut out for the big display tank.



2 months to go!

Jools

WhitePine wrote:any new pictures on the fish room? I am thinking of painting my fish room with Exterior paint... as it is designed to weather seal the outside of a house and should work great to seal the inside.

I looked at that and it seemed a good idea although I may go for bathroom paint - only because it is available in blue!

Jools

nice job!

i have a question. i see all of your tanks are open. this means more evaporation ofcourse, but i was wondering if you ever had pl*cs jumping out of the tanks?

i would like to have a tank that's open, but my L021 jumps for air sometimes and i hear it bumping it's head against the lights or cover. is open tank a big risk with commons?

I have drip trays on all tanks, they are just not in the photos as I have taken them off when working on the tanks. For larger tanks I use PVC sheets from DIY stores which are cheap, work really well and can be cut to size (e.g. 4"x2.5").

Jools

thanks for the quick reply. after reading your post three times, i still don't understand what you mean exactly, my english is lousy

do you mean drip trays like you see on beertaps? so the air can go through and evaporated water can get back in the tank?

I have seen Jools "drip trays" (which is essentially a cover), and it's a something like this - it's a small profile corrugated plastic sheet, about 20-30 mm between peaks ("wavelength") and about 10-15 mm height ("amplitude").

--
Mats

thanks, i understand now (finally), nice solution, will keep this in mind for the future.

Jools wrote:

WhitePine wrote:any new pictures on the fish room? I am thinking of painting my fish room with Exterior paint... as it is designed to weather seal the outside of a house and should work great to seal the inside.

I looked at that and it seemed a good idea although I may go for bathroom paint - only because it is available in blue!

Jools

You can get most outdoor paints mixed to any color you like. Ask your paint dealer.

looks good!

WhitePine wrote:You can get most outdoor paints mixed to any color you like. Ask your paint dealer.

Sorry, yes, what I meant was it is considerably more expensive even for the fishroom only the difference is £80/$160. Mind you I just shelled out a small fortune for industrial grade waterproof flooring.

Jools

The new half of the room has been painted now and I'm moving tanks in today (prior to fitting racking, display tanks etc).



Jools