Building a Fishroom - Part 1

There are many reasons and ways to build a fish-room. It can be a complicated process and some very bad results can occur if you're not careful. We've built or played a major role in building eight different fish-rooms and hatcheries ranging from 70 aquariums all the way up to hundreds of tanks. We've also rebuilt a few of them after they were up for a decade or two. We've had our share of disasters to go along with things that went very well. This will be the first in a series of articles sharing what we've learned. We will discuss the pros and the cons of having a fish-room as well as the techniques and challenges of actually building one.

First, why should you even consider a fish-room? Well, at some point if you accumulate enough aquariums, water changes will become a chore, heating them will become expensive, space will be at a premium (like when 2 or 3 of them are on your kitchen counter), you'll accumulate (by the dozens) inefficient small air pumps that don't work and you'll start to look for ways to either make things easier or to reduce the number of aquariums. Now, we don't want to see you get rid of any aquariums, so let's take a look at some of the obvious and not so easily seen advantages of a properly designed fish-room.

Labor and Time Savings - Water changes become not only much faster, they usually save water, keep your carpets and furniture from having water damage, and allow you to easily do them more frequently. Walking from one tank to the next is usually one step, so there is less wasting movement. A good fish-room has a sink, water connection and drain nearby. Food, nets, siphons, brine shrimp jars, specimen cups, etc., are all at your finger tips. Until you have a fish room, you can't believe how much time is wasting just getting from one place to another.

We can do a 50% water change on 75 (30-gal tanks) in approximately one hour - all by hand (siphon to empty and hose to fill). With a bucket brigade and tanks scattered about, you'd be luck to be able to do 6-8 in that time frame.

Costs Savings - A well built fish room will be heavily insulated. This allows for a very efficient use of energy. It will stay cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. In our northern climate, we can keep a fishroom at 80 degrees in January without any heat added other than that given off by the air pump, lights and other electrical items that we use regardless of temperature. Our first fishroom (70 tanks) in 1983 resulted in our electric bill dropping by approximately 60% over having just 15-20 tanks scattered about with heaters and full hood lights. Your degree of savings will depend on several factors. How cold your winters are, how well insulated your fish-room is and how far you have to raise the temperature over the surrounding areas.

Humidity Control - Placing all your tank into one smaller enclosed space will allow you to control the humidity levels in your building. I've seen people actually ruin a house from moisture damage coming from their poorly designed fish-room, so this part is important. Properly designed fish-rooms allow you the option of not putting a cover or hood on each tank. Without hoods, everything is easier and faster feeding, water changes and cleaning all go much quicker. If any significant number of tanks are without hoods when scattered around your house, humidity damage is a large probability, especially in climates where the humidity is already high, or in newly built houses that are constructed tightly.

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