Basement fish room build

[Nick Jarvis]

Hi all. First post here so allow me to introduce myself.
I am Nick, 27 and from Leicestershire, England. I have been in the hobby for a little under 2 years. I have a 300ltr community tank and a couple of plastic boxes (1 for C. Venezuelanus fry and the other for cherry shrimp).I am looking to build a small fish room in the basement of my house (mainly as a way of keeping more fish but I have told the wife it's to pay the bills )
I am already a member of another fish forum but nobody there has experience with a fish room build.

I am basically looking for advice. I want to keep the room as automated as possible. Filtration wise I am thinking about installing a closed loop air system running sponges and for water changes I would like a drip overflow system running.

So far in the basement is a 5x2x2ft tank and a 95ltr tank both empty and awaiting instructions.
I hope to build a rack containing 9-15 small plastic tubs 35ltr or so.

So does anyone have any advice regarding building a fish room for the first time?

 

[DutchMuch]

Welcome
I have good advice, don't drill into your floor.

 

[Bawugna]

Nick,
I see no one answered your question so I will give it a try. But first, I have some questions for you. When you say a "fish room" to what exactly are you referring? I had rooms that held my collections (fish, herps and spiders/scorpions) and am wondering what you are looking to do. The first and most important place to start is with an adequate heating scheme to keep the room at a stable temp. This will include a heat source of course, and some way to keep the room isolated, so you can preserve the heat. Then there is the subject of electric. Water and electricity are not friends and yes I have been shocked many times so place your outlets as far as practical from the tanks. Placement would be preferably overhead as water flows downhill. Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters are great for protecting people but can at times do a false "off" shutting down major systems like filters and heaters. I did what some may frown upon but did use a GFI on my filter....personal decision. Set up a drainage scheme that makes water changes easy with small basins in several areas making reaching a drain easy, this is of course room size dependent. Water supply should follow the same thinking as drainage. A floor drain if easily installed (get a good plumber) is always nice to keep the floors puddle free. A good quality floor surfacing that is both water proof, and nonslip is a good idea. Keep lighting to a minimum most of the time. Make it such that lights for working on tanks can be turned on in discrete areas not just some big bright light that turns on the whole room. I used a mixture of cinderblock and heavy wood to support my tanks. Some smaller tanks can be set up on 2x4 inch framework. Paint all of your wood black with a high quality acrylic paint. It is hard and will protect the wood. I hope some of this helps you start moving in the right direction. My aquariums were on a single system that had one filter and a more or less elaborate drainage scheme. Water changes were a matter of opening a valve to "waste". Explain this "drip overflow" system to me. The advantage of a multi-tank system is single source heating and filtration. Lights were on timers and I fed the fish by hand....that is some of the fun in ownership.

 

[Baker]

Don't know if I'm allowed to plug external sources but check out the aquarium co-op channel on YouTube. He has tons of content as well as a whole series on building his fish room. He is very active when it comes to responses as well so you can't go wrong with him.