Hello everyone, hopefully this weekend I will get to pick up a 180 gallon rr marineland tank. I am planning to put my water station in my non temperature controlled garage, which I'm not worried about. But I am also considering putting a remote sump in there for my 180 dt. Which im not sure yet, but I may have to add a chiller just in case. But my main question here is, do you think a 10 or 20 gallon refugium tank and a 55 gallon tank for sump would be a good set up? I plan on running a mix tank, and hopefully someday some beautiful sps! I would rather set this up once and have too much then to have to add it later. Thanks
Remote sump questions and idaes
- Thread starter Reefchef
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Garage's generally don't have very good insulation... so in the winter and the summer you'll have some challenges keeping the temperature under control. I think it would help if you use acrylic which is a better insulator. Perhaps even wrapping the tanks in the garage with an insulator. The only one I know that runs his systems in his garage is @ricky5415 . Perhaps he can chime in how he keeps the temperature so stable in there. I don't think he uses chillers and just regular heaters.
It's not insulated at all, cold as hell now hot in the summer!!! But thats my only option for a remote sump, other wise I will have to go under the stand. Only really I was going to do glass was because on the $1 a gallon sale! Just trying to save where I can. Thanks for the feedback.
Ricky's garage is pretty much finished. He's got HVAC lines run in there and he has a window AC unit. There's also a !@#& crap ton of water in that garage!
I know there's a decent number of people that have sumps and RODI water in their garages but I've always worried about it. Not only the temps but I can see a significant other or kid starting a vehicle in there and running back in the house for something, getting a call or taking a dump... before you know it the system is nuked from CO & CO2.
I know there's a decent number of people that have sumps and RODI water in their garages but I've always worried about it. Not only the temps but I can see a significant other or kid starting a vehicle in there and running back in the house for something, getting a call or taking a dump... before you know it the system is nuked from CO & CO2.
Here are a few pictures of my garage and also where I plan to place my DT, to help give you guys an idea of what I'm working with. Please continue to give feedback and ideas, as I am very open and appreciative to learning during this process. It's better for me to ask now rather than learn later the hard way!!! Please disregard the mess as we have already started spring cleaning, to get stuff out of my way my wife just thinks I'm trying to be helpful!!!
1. I am planing on putting a utility sink in the very back left corner. It's on a slab, but I can access that wall from my crawl space plus I have pex plumbing so it's very easy to work with to add water lines. I will also have the RODI system placed above the utility sink with a line running across the room for the water output.
2. I will also end up placing my sump there next to the utility sink, if I end up going that way.
3. I plan on having 2 75 gallon vertical water storage tank for my rods water and one for the salt water. Plumbed together with a bibb connection for a hose.
4. If I am not able to do my sump in the garage, I will just have to do a traditional one under the tank.
1. I am planing on putting a utility sink in the very back left corner. It's on a slab, but I can access that wall from my crawl space plus I have pex plumbing so it's very easy to work with to add water lines. I will also have the RODI system placed above the utility sink with a line running across the room for the water output.
2. I will also end up placing my sump there next to the utility sink, if I end up going that way.
3. I plan on having 2 75 gallon vertical water storage tank for my rods water and one for the salt water. Plumbed together with a bibb connection for a hose.
4. If I am not able to do my sump in the garage, I will just have to do a traditional one under the tank.
Thank you Anit77 for your perspective, makes a lot of sense. Luckily I only have little ones, I would have to worry more about the wife running into it! In your opinion do you feel it would not be advisable to do it in the garage? I'm looking at this option for a few different reasons. Ease of maintenance, larger sump, closer to the water station for ato and possibly awc, and I would have less overall weight on my floors in the house which will be supported. If I do under the cabinet I may be able to get a 40 gallon sump compared to 75-100 gallons. And I would have less worries about any type of flooding in the house.
I'd do the remote setup. I've been thinking about it for years in my own unfinished basement that doesn't have conditioned air. Keeping it warm in the winter isn't that hard with a few extra heaters and and some 1/2" house insulation wrap. I prefer to have a "standard" heating arrangement setup on a controller with a few smaller supplemental heaters for the cold months. These auxiliary heaters would ideally be on a different circuit in case something goes wrong with the main heating system. In that case, the temp would go down since the auxiliary system wouldn't be about to heat the whole system but would prevent a major swing. The heat is a different matter but it's not the end of the world either. You just need fans, a good top-off and a chiller. The biggest problem I see with keeping things cool in the summer is that it's hard to react fast if something goes sideways. In the winter, you can go to any of ARC's terrific sponsors and buy all kinds of heaters to react to a disaster but it's a little harder to get and replace a chiller in an hour is something breaks.
I would also be very concerned with a power outage. If the power goes out for 2 hours in the winter, your set up would kick a LOT of cold water into the main display that will still be plenty warm from being inside. You could easily react to an outage by cutting off the sump and putting it back online when everything outside warms up but power outages rarely happen when I'm home with nothing much going on. You could put the pump on a controller with a temp probe (Pump on if water temp is between 70° and 82°) but that's one more thing to worry about. This potential pitfall can be avoided but having a good backup generator but the good one's aren't cheap and they have to be maintained to function well when they're absolutely needed. (As an aside, it drives my kid half-mad when I've got a backup generator for my fish tanks but not one for the TV.)
I don't have any experience running anything in a garage. So I can't be of much help. I just have the concerns with temp and gasses, either exhaust from vehicles or from gas/paint cans. There are other members that have done it and hopefully they'll have something to add. I believe @hzheng33 ran some tanks in his garage at one point.
Adam is right. i had a tank system in my garage for almost 2 years and here's the nitty gritty.
my garage is not insulated and the fact that the house faces west, it means that during summer time it's getting blasted with all the glory of the summer heat.
having said that, i used a chiller to lower the tank temp to 78-82. but even with the chiller, most of the time the tank is sitting around 84-86. no impact to the inhabitants but just a tad warmer than usual and outside of my comfort zone.
during winter time, i needed 5 200-300w heaters (yes 5). 1st to provide the temperature needed and 2nd to provide redundancy in case one fails. my garage temp is about ~20F during winter time just as a reference.
with all things considered, i managed to run a 40gal tank with sump for almost 2 years with no loss due to temperature.
my garage is not insulated and the fact that the house faces west, it means that during summer time it's getting blasted with all the glory of the summer heat.
having said that, i used a chiller to lower the tank temp to 78-82. but even with the chiller, most of the time the tank is sitting around 84-86. no impact to the inhabitants but just a tad warmer than usual and outside of my comfort zone.
during winter time, i needed 5 200-300w heaters (yes 5). 1st to provide the temperature needed and 2nd to provide redundancy in case one fails. my garage temp is about ~20F during winter time just as a reference.
with all things considered, i managed to run a 40gal tank with sump for almost 2 years with no loss due to temperature.
i guess i was lucky in a way that there's no power outage during the 2 winters that the tank was in the garage. i did have power outage a couple times during summer time but they were not prolong heat period (usually during massive thunderstorm when the ambient temp is lower than what it should be)
