Build: 200 gallon frag system

[danielll]

Hi guys,

I wanted to post as I move through this build so I could some input along the way.

I operate a little side business selling frags online, and I built a frag tank for holding that has some design issues. The tank is 4 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 8 inches high. I designed a custom enclosure for it as I intended to do some pretty cool stuff with it online. (at the end of this new build some components of this system will be for sale for a pretty great price.

My current frag tank:

Aluminum extrusion for the frame it's cool, but highly non-maintainable. The 3 foot depth of the tank and it's high height make it impossible to even reach the back. On top of that it's on the second floor of my home, and presents a constant and very major risk. My square foot capacity is good, but not great. I have 12 square feet for frag space, but even that is limited to a smaller usable space due to the gyre power heads etc.

My new build:
What I always wanted to do was to use my garage for the business, but that presents problems too. I would have to heat and cool it, which is expensive, and requires a good bit of contract work to get done. On top of that, the wife doesn't want me to alter the house any.

So my idea is to build a large box in the garage, and climate control that instead.


The box is right at 8 feet tall, 10 feet long. The tanks will be two 10 feet long tanks, 12 inches tall, and 24 inches wide. Situated in a horshoe, and overflowing into a simple sump which will just slightly lower than the tanks themselves.

A large return pump will t off and feed water to the other end of the tanks, creating a constant flow back to the center sump area. The overflow will fall into filter floss, and I will run a skimmer for nutrient export.

I intend to build the tanks using the fiberglass method, and have them float with no support on the floor. A near solid 2x4 base will support the tanks from wall to wall.

This will take my frag holding capacity from 12 square feet, to 40, and should be highly maintainable, and finally be in my garage where any type of major failure can do almost no lasting damage to my home.

I wanted to post this now, get some feedback on the design from you guys. I am currently in the middle of framing it, so there will only be limited pictures until I get to the tanks and stuff we all care about.

Some things I would love some feedback, and guidance on:

1. supporting the tanks spanning 10 feet, should I go ahead and brace in the middle, or will enough 2x4 spanning it be sufficient to hold the weight?

2. Fiberglassing the tank. Anyone done a "plywood tank" If you have, please chime in, I'd love all the advice I can get on this.

 

[danielll]

Current progress: Framing framing framing



Also, here's a picture of my dog for no reason.
<-- Look at that pretty boy.

 

[Adam]

It looks like a good plan but you may have a few issues. 1st I think you're trying to cram too much in there and you won't have much room to move around. My fish room is about that wide, but longer, it's tough to maneuver things in there. If I had a tank behind me it would be nearly impossible. Even with an L shape you're going to be cramped. Getting under those tanks is going to take a contortionist effort. Getting the sump and support equipment out of there would be a big help but that would expose that portion of the system to the environmental issues you're trying to avoid. Do you have the ability of enlarging the foot print any? If you can widen it to the max and maybe lengthen it some you'll be saving you're self in the long run. Another thing you can do is put the sump and equipment on the narrow back wall and start with one tank on the wall facing the exterior of the garage with the plan of adding another down the road. Having unobstructed access above the sump makes maintenance a lot easier. Unless I'm stuck with a traditional setup I will never have a sump under a tank again.

Next is, what's your plan to ventilate the room and get the air from in there outside? With the amount of surface area you're going to have, there will be a lot of evaporation.

The stand... Glass tanks that have a frame are designed to transfer all the weight to the corners. A plywood/fiberglass tank will have the weight distributed evenly across the footprint. You're not looking at a ton of weight but I'd think that at 10' 2x4's would tend to sag without bracing in the center. You're also going to have to brace the box under the tank to avoid sagging in the center of the tank. A member here designed my stand for me and used plywood to make engineered lumber for the upper box. The problem the is the 8' sheets not being long enough for your 10' lenght. If you went with a shorter lenght it would be perfect for this and give you a bit of room for the sump at one end of the room.

 

[danielll]

Hi Anit,

Thanks for the info. The "room is 90 inches total width, and after doing some numbers, I think you are right, I should probably just shave a few inches off the width of the tanks to give a bit more space in between them.

The sump is actually the middle part of the horseshoe. I will just have the water overflow into it on the end, and will fall into the filter floss, skimmer and return pump will be down there but that is it. I will only have coral in here, maybe one or two fish but generally almost no bio load, so I don't expect to need a great deal of equipment.

As far as ventilation, I was intending just a wall unit, with a small hose routed outside to drain off condensation. I believe these units do a pretty good job of dehumidifying. I actually don't expect to need to heat the space due to the heaters in the water, and equipment running in the room. The whole room will be heavily insulated. if it becomes an issue I can swap the wall unit with one that heats as well.

I tend to agree, while I wanted the tanks to float, i don't think it will hold up structurally. I will likely add a brace to the middle. 10 ft 2x4s will be added along the bottom, probably 4-6 per tank to hold and distribute the weight. Ill add a solid brace to the middle or perhaps two, ill have to look more closely at it when I get to that.

 

[boosting99]

Very Nice

 

[Adam]

Hey Daniel, I'm Adam.

Just trying to help give you some things to consider. Your welcome to stop by my place some time to see the way my fish room is setup. I'm in Duluth.

The problem with routing the window unit into the garage without any secondary ventilation in there is it will make the space even hotter in the summer. In the winter you will have all that evaporation still going on and no way to remove it. With 40sf of surface area not including the sump there's going to be a lot of humidity in the air. I can tell you that even with an exhaust fan and conditioned space, the 28sf of surface area I have can be tough to deal with at times. But I just have to crank the AC up some to knock it down and in the winter the heating pulls it from the air too. You're only choice is to open a garage door.

With the stand ripping 3/4" plywood to the width you want and laminating the pieces you've basically made engineered lumber that is considerably stronger than standard 2x lumber. It will hold a span, stay true and not warp. Take your measurements with you and HD or Lowe's will do the rip cuts for you when you buy the sheets. Then add 2x lumber under the boxes you make to support them.
If you're going to stick with a 10' tank and a brace in the middle then you can use 5' from the sheets and the 3' left over can be used to make center braces. Using 4"(3-7/8" with 1/8" waste) rips you can make 12 of the longer pieces per sheet and you'll need 8 of those per tank. The other option is using the full sheet length and doing 2' offsets on either end with bracing in the corners and 2' in from each corner. This will give you close to a 6' clear span in the center.

I don't have any experience making a plywood tank but if you're not going to have a front viewing pane then the same laminating principle could be used to cover the gaps.

 

[danielll]

Can you post a picture of what you mean, or a link to the method? Just want to make sure I am thinking along your lines.

Just picked up a bunch of pallets, thinking of doing the pallet plank flooring thing. Seems like fun

 

[danielll]

also to be clear, I am planning to use fiberglass cloth over the hardwood box, which will be backed up by an extremely strong 2x4 frame.

 

[Adam]

Basically you're ripping the plywood into strips then gluing & screwing them together. Two 3/4" pieces of plywood attached together is the same 1-1/2" thickness dimensionally as 2x lumber, just much stronger and won't warp. The nice thing is you can make them to the same dimensions as standard lumber, 2x4, 2x6, 2x8, 2x10... or anything in between.

Here's a shot of my stand before painting. The width was more for the overall height of the tank and overkill for a 220. It's cut to 2x10.

I learned a lot in the process of building that stand and would do things a lot different knowing what I do now. I slapped over 2 tons on top of that and the span didn't deflect at all.
I'm not the best at drawing stuff out, but an offset would be attaching a two foot piece on the opposite ends of the individual longer eight foot plywood strips. So when you slide the two together it's ten feet long.

 

[lmm1967]

https://atlantareefclub.org/boards/index.php?threads/plywood-stand.47965/

Some photos in there of 2 stands I built - nothing but 3/4" plywood was used. Some of the images were on photo bucket so they are gone - but a couple posts down shows the stands put together.

If done carefully - plywood can be made to be more structurally sound than dimensional lumber. You just need a way to be sure your cuts are square and never bear weight with fasteners.

 

[danielll]

Thanks for the info! I will look into it when i get to the tank portion of the project.

Just got a quote from a company of first, over 600 for fiberglassing materials, and then 300 adjusted to one layer. If anyone has fiberglassed a tank, can you tell me if this is reasonable?

 

[Adam]

Plus your going to want a gel coat for the outer layer...

I've never seen a Plywood/fiberglass tank so I can't be of any help there. From what I know about boats that pricing seems to be in line for custom work.

I did a quick search and something like this may be a better bet for you. pentairaes.com

**Edit**
Here are my search results. You might want to alter the search terms to narrow it down to what you're looking for.

 

[AquariumSchmo]

Are you going to enter though the garage door or through a doorway from inside the garage? Regardless, you might want to consider insulating the garage doors as it would help with the overall garage temperature surrounding your box. You can buy kits on Home Depot's site. I have them on mine.

 

[danielll]

Thanks Anit, I was reviewing some builds online, and they are going a more simplistic method of just resin and fiberglass cloth.

AquariumSchmo, entry will be via inside the garage, for insulating the doors, was that effective? I definetely intended to insulate the box itself, but that's a great point, some attention could be given to the whole garage as a means to make it all work more effectively.

On a side note, I was planning rigid foam insulation inside the box, and to seal it as best I can, in hopes to allow humidity inside it to rise, and lower the evap rate. Thoughts?

 

[Adam]

Thanks Anit, I was reviewing some builds online, and they are going a more simplistic method of just resin and fiberglass cloth.

Based on the cost of those troughs in the link it should be more cost effective. I know the ones in the link aren't 10' but for $323 plus freight for a 8x2x1 doesn't sound to bad. They're in Orlando

On a side note, I was planning rigid foam insulation inside the box, and to seal it as best I can, in hopes to allow humidity inside it to rise, and lower the evap rate. Thoughts?

If... strike that. When the humidity gets too high water will start condensing where you don't want it to. You will also have tons of problems with electrical connections and a high metal corrosion rate. You may even start to have those problems with tools and other metals in the garage itself. This just really doesn't sound like a good idea without ventilation.

 

[AquariumSchmo]

AquariumSchmo, entry will be via inside the garage, for insulating the doors, was that effective? I definetely intended to insulate the box itself, but that's a great point, some attention could be given to the whole garage as a means to make it all work more effectively.

On a side note, I was planning rigid foam insulation inside the box, and to seal it as best I can, in hopes to allow humidity inside it to rise, and lower the evap rate. Thoughts?

I did it a year ago, so I have been through a winter and summer season now. I noticed a big difference. It is easy to install too (a bit messy though as it is styrofoam). You just cut the foam panels to fit between the metal braces on the garage door.

I'm not an expert on insulation, but I think rigid foam is a good choice for the box. I would fill the gaps around it with gap filler foam or caulk; though the gap filler spray foam is very smelly... I wonder if lingering fumes from it could potentially be unsafe for corals; probably not, but something to consider.

Personally, I would aim for normal humidity of 45-50 and a comfortable temperature with heat and air as if it were the inside of your home, but again I'm not an expert and haven't done a project like that. And not sure, but perhaps some sort of fresh air supply from outside would help PH; you should probably at least run an air hose outside from your skimmer.

That's an exciting project. Keep us updated on the progress.

 

[danielll]

Love the idea for running an airhose from the skimmer!

Thanks for the weigh in on humidity.

 

[danielll]

If someone feels incline, tell me why using a pond liner isn't the absolute best, and cheapest way to go?

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Total-Pond-10-ft-x-13-ft-Pond-Liner-52251/202017066

 

[enderg60]

Plywood/fiber glass tanks are super easy. Just make it out of plywood and cover it in a layer of fiberglass and resin. I plan to make some for my mixing station when I move. For the space youre looking at I would recommend doing that.

Im actually looking to upgrade my frag system from two 40 gallons to a kiddie pool or a 8'x 4' plywood tank, just depends on the space I can make in the basement.

Oh and if you keep the room small enough, you can cover the heating/cooling with a window AC unit but it has to be a heat pump so it does heating also.

 

[Adam]

The pond liner can work. The corners will be funky and hard to keep the creases from getting too big. The main issue will be heat, at one foot deep the black liner will absorb a lot of the light energy and release it back into the water. I also don't know how the stuff is rated for uv, which can deteriorate it.

Those premade fiberglass trough's look pretty appealing. Especially since they're gel coated.