Help with New Home: Garage Fish Room?

[ariellemermaid]

We're in the process of finalizing an offer on a house and need some thoughts on where to setup our Red Sea Reefer XXL 750 and fish room. The first question is whether we can use our desired location or not which has a basement below. Doing the research on this in the past, it seems the consensus is "probably," but have an engineer sign off.

Next, is the fish room. We have 3 possibilities for plumbing. Half bath shares an adjacent wall, but that would only get us RODI, not water storage. Second, is that the main water shutoff is actually in the garage, so we could tap into that pipe. Third, is that the HVAC room is directly below which has a whole house humidifier which means one of the pipes in that room must carry water.

Main floor (tank not to scale, it's an 8.8ft wall with a 6ft tank):

Basement ("electrical room" is HVAC):

Both options have their challenges. Either way it seems we'll have to tap into a copper pipe for RODI. Going directly through the garage wall would be easier than piping up from the basement (should be an insulated wall), but the basement would eliminate temperature concerns. Typically, outdoor temps in our area stay above freezing, but we did have several days of teen lows this winter.

Regarding the garage option, how concerned would I need to be about the RODI unit and reservoirs freezing? Assuming worst case of outdoor temps in the 10's F, garage temps 10 degrees higher, so about 20F. A quick calculator suggests it would take about a week of those sustained temps to freeze 40gallons, and this is unlikely. Plus I could add a nearby heater, etc. So the biggest concern would be RODI lines and the unit itself. Although, my preference would be to have my dosing 1 gallon containers in the fish room as well to minimize DOS noise.

So! How would you folks manage this new home?

 

[Troylee]

I’d put the redsea tank in the basement with a drain right in front of it since they tend to let the front seams go and cause lots of damage.

 

[KrisReef]

A laundry room should have cold water and a drain that might easily be tapped into?

Once you have a water supply and a drain, you can easily insulate a space for water storage & why not mixing?

Long time ago I would tell people who were planning for a larger tank to get rid of the couch in the living room.

 

[reef_ranch]

Frame out a sump/water storage room in the garage? I did that and it works well. My sump room is 6x12 which is large enough for my sump, two frag tanks, a sink and counter and the RO/DI. I keep 2 100g RO/DI and salt water storage tanks also in the garage but not in the sump room. Scale down to fit your needs, but it is great to have a room where the clutter can live.

 

[ariellemermaid]

I’d put the redsea tank in the basement with a drain right in front of it since they tend to let the front seams go and cause lots of damage.

Well, to be fair you can find disaster stories for every tank brand. I think we'll just have to take the risk. Keeping it in the basement for the last many years has resulted in a lot of neglect and never really being able to enjoy the tank as we spend most of our time on the main level.

A laundry room should have cold water and a drain that might easily be tapped into?

Once you have a water supply and a drain, you can easily insulate a space for water storage & why not mixing?

Long time ago I would tell people who were planning for a larger tank to get rid of the couch in the living room.

Oh crap, drain! Good point. Even though the garage has a water line it doesn't have a drain. Might be able to send the drain line out to the gutters, but then even greater chance of freezing. So yeah, maybe the RODI in the laundry room, into the garage for storage, and through the wall to the tank. Might still have concerns about the RODI lines themselves freezing but could throw some pool noodles over them I guess.

Frame out a sump/water storage room in the garage? I did that and it works well. My sump room is 6x12 which is large enough for my sump, two frag tanks, a sink and counter and the RO/DI. I keep 2 100g RO/DI and salt water storage tanks also in the garage but not in the sump room. Scale down to fit your needs, but it is great to have a room where the clutter can live.

Woah, ok, sump room.... Hadn't considered that, but would eliminate sump noise and water splashes from sump maintenance. One issue is that the garage is already kind of small though. If I were to consider putting a sump in the garage, would I need to send 2 PVC pipes- one for the main and one for the emergency flows?

 

[reef_ranch]

To put the sump in a remote room you would need to run at least 3 pipes, one for drain, one for emergency drain and one for return. You are right that it makes the tank virtually silent.

 

[ariellemermaid]

To put the sump in a remote room you would need to run at least 3 pipes, one for drain, one for emergency drain and one for return. You are right that it makes the tank virtually silent.

That's a lot of holes. What size PVC did you go with?

 

[Mschmidt]

Do you have access under the stairs on the other side of the bathroom?

You could run the lines through the wall behind the toilet. It may be a pita if you want water storage or need to do much there though.

 

[reef_ranch]

That's a lot of holes. What size PVC did you go with?

You would want to size it to the flow you want to achieve. My tank is 340gal and I wanted to be able to get 1500 gph through the sump so I went with 2" drains and 1.5" return. There are flow calculators out there to help you size the drains and the return based on the flow rate, the drop and the distance.

 

[ariellemermaid]

Do you have access under the stairs on the other side of the bathroom?

You could run the lines through the wall behind the toilet. It may be a pita if you want water storage or need to do much there though.

No, the stairs are sealed off. I think water storage is a must both for TDS creep reasons and saltwater mixing. I've traditionally run auto water changes, although I'm not entirely sure my tank has even benefited from it (stability and low nutrients without WC). When I set this back up it'll be brand new; I plan to bleach all my rock and basically start over, so I guess we'll see what the new setup requires. Things took a turn for the worst after Hurricane Helene.

You would want to size it to the flow you want to achieve. My tank is 340gal and I wanted to be able to get 1500 gph through the sump so I went with 2" drains and 1.5" return. There are flow calculators out there to help you size the drains and the return based on the flow rate, the drop and the distance.

I'll have to look into those calculations. I'm really digging the idea of a basement sump so long as the wall cooperates. It would be amazing to have the controller, ATO, dosing, water changes, skimmer, trident, and easy access to the top of the sump all in the basement! With the water heater and HVAC, that room should have a drain too.