BUILDING MY FISH-HOUSE
I have being promising for some time to write this article, at the time I was building my fish-house I could find very little information on the Internet. So we will start with the most important question?
Do I need a fish-house? Sooner or later, every fish keeper will need extra tanks. You are always looking in shops, friend’s tanks, the internet and you see more and more new and different kinds of fish. So now you need more than one tank. The first excuse is normally a quarantine tank and it gets full so the cycle starts.
Having tanks all over the house can become a problem, mostly for the other half and you need to think about a new place or space for your tanks. I had seen Derek Doyle’s and Joe Mitchell’s fish-houses and I wanted something in between. At that time Derek had a wooden shed converted and was producing some beautiful fish where Joe’s was a concrete structure, a show fish-house with large fish and large tanks.
Where should I put it – A fish-house can be any size you want it to be, just make sure you know what you want and need. If you are planning large tanks you are going to need a suitable fish-house not a converted 8ft. by 6ft. shed. I was in a lucky position because I didn’t have to build a new structure. My garage is 70ft. by 20ft. with the back section divided into a nice size of 13ft. by 20ft., which was a great start for me. My water supply was only a few feet away and electricity was already in the garage.
But not everybody will have that luxury, so you might have to compromise between what you want and what you have room for. This in turn might affect what fish you can keep. I didn’t really have this problem and I had concrete floors which will carry a lot more weight than wooden floors, remember your tanks are heavy but when you add water???? Remember every litre of water is a kilo, so a 500lt. tank is half a metric ton without the weight of the tank itself.
Plan everything and then go over it again and then go over it with somebody that has a fish-house and iron out all possible costs and problems. Derek was a great help here to bounce my ideas off as he had talked about building a new fish-house himself and knew what he would do differently. I had two fish-houses before this one and I had a few new ideas too.
Starting the work - An extra pair of hands and eyes are always good at a time like this and I had my wife Jo. She might be only five foot and a quarter of an inch but would put most men to shame with her stamina, and would come up with ideas and suggestions that Derek and myself might have overlooked.
The first job we had to do was to knock a dog kennel and fill in the door the dogs used to get in and out. That done we then started by studding all the walls with 5cm X 5cm battens in the vertical position (Lying position), putting 3 of them on, one of them about 20cm from the roof, one in the middle and last one about 15cm off the ground. We then put in 5cm X 5cm battens in the horizontal position (standing) about 60cm apart so we could support the 120cm X 240cm plaster slabs.
IT IS NOW TIME TO WIRE THE FISH-HOUSE
Think strongly before you start wiring, you need to have this job done by the professionals as it has to be completed to a very high standard. This room is the most dangerous room in the house if you think about the amount of water and electricity in this very small space, water and electricity just don’t mix.
LIGHTING FIRST:- Each bank of tanks and the main lights were fed from two timer’s with independent switch’s for each bank of lights. This way you could not leave any of the lights on overnight, not all the lights came on at once, which would be better for the fish. There was 10 minute delay between each bank of lights switching on and off, as the timer would automatically knock all the lights off which would allow the fish have a night every night. If you bypassed the timers after an hour the lights would switch themselves off again so I had a night light in the fish-house which meant the fish-house was never in total darkness. We had put a window in the old steel double doors and I was lucky the day I decided to do this as Bob Reynolds was there, and he had worked with metal all his life so he was the man to cut out a straight and square hole. We had to silicone in a double glazed frosted window across this hole for support and to stop any rain or cold air getting in. The window was supported on the inside by a wooden frame.
Next job was to wire the sockets, we put 3 double sockets at least for every bank of tanks for any extra pumps, power heads or heaters that might be needed. We decided to put all the wiring behind the plaster slabs as we had already worked out where all the tanks were going so we knew where to put the sockets. As with all of life, things don’t always work out exactly the way you plan and one or two sockets finished behind tanks. The 5cm X 5cm battens in the vertical position were great for running the wires along from socket to socket and back to the fuse board. This was the first fixing electrical finished. Also at this time we ran in the Storage Heating cable, which was direct from fuse board to heater via a fused switch.
This is also the time to get your water supply in, we are on well water and you could never depend on the farmers as they could spray the fields any time and the water would not be the best after this. We had a 450Lt. tank up over my sink and a valve which allowed the water to either go direct to the 450Lt. reservoir tank or to the tap on the sink. If the water was good on any day which would be tested with our API Test Kit that we bought in our LFS, we would fill up the reservoir tank and use the water straight from the tap to the tank with a kettle of boiling water to bring it up to temperature, as we had none of the normal house water additives to worry about, my Africans loved this water and there was never a problem getting them to breed.
The RO Unit was also fed from this supply and this water was split into three 50 Ltr. bins, the first bin was for the pure RO water and the other two bins were for the waste RO water which we fed through a deionizer. We had a septic tank like most country houses and could not let large amounts of water go straight into it, all this water would have killed the septic tanks bacteria. We did not have mains drainage to take the water into the nations drains which is very handy when running an RO unit.
Remember you will need a drain in your fish-house as all your old tank water needs to go somewhere?
At this stage we got in a builder to help, Bernard Carroll was the man of the moment and we used 10cm thick Rockwool insulation on the walls and the roof. The next job was to put in a vapor barrier, for this we used 1000 gauge plastic which we stapled to the battens. You don’t want all the moisture in the fish-house going through all your new wood, your insulation and your outside walls, as wet insulation is even worse than no insulation. This insulation keeps the heat out as well as in for our really hot summers we have all become accustomed to. Ha, ha, ha.
We slabed the walls with plasterboard and then Bernard plastered them and Jo and I painted them. We used 6mm plywood on the ceiling and battened all the joints as the battens looked better and this ceiling was lighter than plasterboard so you needed smaller timbers to support it, after this was completed and sanded Jo varnished it. When putting up the ceiling we left a couple of supports from the roof timbers sticking down to steady the free standing tanks Tier No.1.
The Air supply around the fish-house was the next job, I had a blower under the sink and an air outlet to the outside garage to make sure you were not recycling your old stale air. Also in the winter you might have to bring the air intake into the fish-house itself, as the air outside is a lot colder which could affect the temperature in the fish-house, your bottom tanks especially. I used 1¼in Marley
pipe the whole way around the fish-house and fed airline from this to the tanks, if you decide to use 3/4in it would probably look a bit neater and it would be cheaper as well, but I already had some 1¼in Marley pipe in stock and used it rather than waste it. All of my tanks were fed with air as the extra oxygen in the tanks would help keep the fish happier longer and most of the filters were air based, this could be supplemented by power-heads, internal and external filters.
The beauty of a fish house is you can make your own filters if you are trying to save a bit of money and they are usually better as they are normally bigger than the bought filters, you can make them whatever size or shape suites you the fish and the tank. Esthetics are not as important in your fish-house tanks, but in a house tank a lot more people will see it and it’s a beautiful piece of furniture that you don’t want a plastic jar or a margarine tub sitting in the middle of.
Don’t forget you need ventilation in your fish-house as well. I had a vent and an electric extractor fan just as an added precaution as damp can settle in very quickly. If you can afford a dehumidifier for your fish-house they are great but have to be emptied regularly.
Tiling the floors with a nonslip tile will keep the dust down and make cleaning the floors a lot easier or you can paint it with proper floor paint, make sure the room is well ventilated if you decide to go down the painting route and leave for a few days as it is now time to start getting the tank stands ready.
It’s a great idea to do a drawing of your fish-house so you know exactly where all you’re battens are as you will need them when you are trying to support your frames for the tanks and keep them steady. When you are building your tank frames make sure you build them for the tanks you want and not to try and fit in the tanks you already have as they most likely will be house tanks and not suitable to best use the fish-house space. If for example you have a 2ft (W) X 1ft (D) X 1.5ft (H) instead of putting it length ways put it sideways. It only takes up one foot of your precious space and is two foot deep so your fish still have the same amount of swimming space.
The filling of the tanks is a slow process but I speeded mine up by getting old water and old filters from established tanks. I still had my second fish house going in my mother in-laws’ shed, we had finished up renting a bungalow with no sheds for 18 months after we sold our house. I had to reduce slightly from the first fish-house but you get some new ideas and you maybe add some new fish each move. As you will go into somebody else’s fish-house and see something that really catches your eye and you know you have to have it. Even with a fish-house you have to stop buying sometime.
I also had the luxury of the other 57ft by 20ft garage in which I kept my fridge and all my food’s and medicine. I felt that the fish house itself might be just a bit too damp for the fish food. If you don’t have this luxury you have to think about a space in your fish-house to store all the food and medicine and any other bits and pieces, as you don’t want everything thrown in places you can trip over it or you have to keep moving it, you want it as pleasant as possible, for you will be in there every day.
Breeding your fish; I’m sure you will want a mother to brood her young and raise the fry in a stress free place. Floating hatch containers in the main tank just don’t work. Young fish need separate tanks to ensure a fast and steady growth where they are not fighting against larger fish for the food and survival as they would be food for all the larger fish and constantly in hiding.
Quarantine tanks are a must, when you get new fish especially when you don’t know where they came from, they have to be quarantined. A bare bottom tank in a quiet corner to give your new purchases a chance to settle in is best. Sick and damaged fish should also be kept in such a tank, so they can be treated and recover from their wounds without getting attacked or infecting the other fish.
STORAGE HEATER
This is my experience and if it helps somebody in the future it will all have been worth the time. If anybody wants’ any advice or has any comments regarding this article don’t hesitate to contact me…………………………Tom.
Picture on left is My 2nd Fish-House and all the other photo’s are from my 3rd Fish-House…………..Tom.