picture tour of my fish room

[BillT]

I just took a bunch of pictures and annotated them, so here is a fish room tour.

My fish room area is a large part of my very large garage (about 40' x 45').

Here is some of the tool area:


Quarantine area near the door. These all are on a flow through system supplied with dechlorinated tap water controlled by a timer controlled sprinkler valve (see below). No manual water changes required.


Opposite that is a fish work area:


In an adjacent room is the main fish room. Only fish raised from surface bleached eggs get in here. This prevents most diseases from getting into there.
The fish racks in the center of the room are two sided. These are Racks made for research labs by the company I work for, Thoren Aquatics. Several companies make similar racks.


Behind these racks are some large tanks. Mostly I do small fish (Danios/Devarios), but I like to see how they shoal and react to people. To me it is an indicator of domestication. The big tanks are 125 and 100 G. Hiding behind them are a couple of 55 G tanks.


Next to the large tanks is a new rack I have been working on:


Here is a fish work area in this room. I put a small sink into the desk next to the squirt bottles. 


Here is the wash area. There are brine shrimp in the inverted pyramid and pop bottle next to the sink.


Here is the RO machine and storage tank. This stuff also came from Thoren Aquatics. There is also a neat little conductivity meter which has sensors on the water going in and out of the RO unit. It is on top of the thermos next to the charcoal filters. I think it cost about $30. If the numbers are different the membranes are not shot. The water going to the RO machine goes through a couple of charcoal filters before its gets to the RO machine. This removes the chlorine from the tap water which is one of the main enemies of the RO membranes. Our water here is quite soft (about 30?S) which also helps keep the membranes from getting clogged. The water comes out at 4 or 5 ?S. I have been using these membranes for about 4 or 5 years and have not had to change them yet.


Here is an incubator I made. It keeps a constant temperature by using an old temperature controller (on top) to run a reptile heater in the bottom with a computer fan to mix the air. There are LED lights controlled by a timer on top. I made the body out of polyurethane foam glued together with gorilla glue (also a polyurethane foam). It took a while to make. Then a friend told me I could have used an old refrigerator. Good idea. Would have saved a lot of time, but...


Rack details to follow.

[Mugwump]

Quite the set up....nice......

[BallAquatics]

Hey that is simply fantastic Bill!  Most of the guys in the local club around here have carpet and lazy boy chairs in their fish room... makes me feel a little self conscious some times.  It's great to see someone else who has what I like to call, 'a working fish room'.  Thanks for the tour!

Dennis

[Frank The Plumber]

Your friend was incorrect. You can not use an old refrigerator. Old refrigerators have formaldehyde impregnated high density foam used as the expanding styrene component that keeps them cold inside. After a number of years the formaldehyde starts to come out of the mixture. This is accelerated by warmth which is what you are using it for. You would have been wondering why your fish were dying at the very least. This is why I keep passing on the really nice old round bodied refrigerators that I like to restore for basement bar rooms. If they sit too long warm they smell like feet, that feet smell is the formaldehyde coming out of them. It's a lot of money to get them cleaned out and refoamed. A lot of folks buy them feet smell and all, not such a good idea.

Great room by the way.

[BillT]

Your friend was incorrect. You can not use an old refrigerator. Old refrigerators have formaldehyde impregnated high density foam used as the expanding styrene component that keeps them cold inside. After a number of years the formaldehyde starts to come out of the mixture. This is accelerated by warmth which is what you are using it for. You would have been wondering why your fish were dying at the very least. This is why I keep passing on the really nice old round bodied refrigerators that I like to restore for basement bar rooms. If they sit too long warm they smell like feet, that feet smell is the formaldehyde coming out of them. It's a lot of money to get them cleaned out and refoamed. A lot of folks buy them feet smell and all, not such a good idea.

Wow. Good information Frank. Thanks.

[b125killer]

you have a impressive  set up. thanks for sharing it with us.

[Ron Sower]

Liking what I see!  Serious fishkeeping going on!

[ilroost]

Very Nice, thanks !!

[Jo]

WOW! That is an awesome fish room! :O

[BillT]

Glad you guys like it.

[LizStreithorst]

Your fish room is so far over my head that I have no words.  I have a decent fish room that suits me, but mine has a comfortable chair!  I can't inagine ever wanting to do it like you.  Different stokes...

[Mugwump]

Your fish room is so far over my head that I have no words.  I have a decent fish room that suits me, but mine has a comfortable chair!  I can't inagine ever wanting to do it like you.  Different stokes...

I'm with you Liz...gotta have a few chairs to enjoy the fruits of your labor....lotsa work gets done, and the chairs for pleasure veiwing...or in my case, resting my bones....LOL

[ilroost]

i like, but with the extra time i have....

[PaulineMi]

I just discovered this thread.  Amazing fish room Bill.  I looked up Thoren Aquatics.  In my ideal world if I could have one really cool toy I'd choose this:
http://thorenaquatics.com/Thoren_Aquatics/Makeup_WaterSystems.htm

Also...was that you doing the fish rack presentation?

[BillT]

Also...was that you doing the fish rack presentation?

I think so.

In my ideal world if I could have one really cool toy I'd choose this:
http://thorenaquatics.com/Thoren_Aquatics/Makeup_WaterSystems.htm

The real thing is not as complicated as the schematic. It has been simplified a lot and is actually not the difficult to make. I have a couple of homemade ones that are working well.
Unlike the system in your link, most people slowly add salt to the sump of a water system. If the salt is added slowly enough, then it gets distributed just fine. If you add it too fast you can have problems like overshooting the salinity target.

You need:
a good water source (RO or what ever you find acceptable)
either a dosing pump of some kind ($80 or more for a good one) or if you can gravity feed to your water system a low pressure solenoid valve (maybe $30 from Jehmco)
a conductivity controller (~$200 or more) with a sensor for your salinity range
a salt water container (bucket)
materials for plumbing it together

These things are great time savers.
I have little patience when it comes to adding some salt, measuring salinity, making another measurement, and repeating several times.