How to better organize multitanks?

[dendro982]

Hi,
Who has or had more than one tank and no fish room, what are the better ways to make a compact tanks placement with unobstructed access for care and maintenance? Storage of frequently used items, especially the long ones (for reaching the far ends of the tank for a feeding), and so on.

I had seen FarmerTodd's presentation Coral farming in two bedroom apartment and GARF's propagation unit, both have tanks of the same size and shape, placed vertically, like shelving unit, with common sump - one for all, and tanks are interconnected.

But my tanks have (and should have) independent sumps and be separate from each other. One of them is sea apples species tank, this is why . The weight of all units could be an issue too: the floors are very old and wooden, with no renovation planned in close future.

Number of my tanks varies from 4 to 7 (most are nanos, 5-20g, and one 90g). Trying to downsize, but once in half of year I usually meet something really interesting, but requiring different conditions, and the next tank is set. Half of year later limits of tolerance are reached, and the photosynthetic species (big at first, and later - small) are given away or traded in LFS for more compatible species.

So far all tanks are of different sizes and shapes, standing where the empty place was. Have justified complains in the family, and would like to make all of this more orderly, compact and convenient. If this is possiible at all.

If somebody has species tanks, any tips will be especially welcome. Tube anemones, sea apples, non-photosynthetic frag tank, sps plus filter feeders - something like that.

Thank you.

 

[Lorna]

wow, you must be busy.....I have two tanks....a 75g in my living room and a 29g in my bedroom with a spare bedroom in between that houses all the fish junk.......

 

[Joe Fish]

The best thing I did was move to a new house with an unfinished basement! I then built the basement with a fish tank in mind. Still could use more room though. With my new tank I'll definitely need long feeding tweezers and an expendable feeding "baster" thing.

I also built my own stand so I made sure it was enclosed with multiple doors to access everything. I used to run 2 tanks and that was quite time consuming. I can't imaging any more than that!

 

[Airborneguy]

Can't help you there bud, you're looking at an almost commercial operation there. I run two tanks, and occasionally 3. They are in seperate rooms, and its fairly easy to store everything under their respective stands (one is homemade, but it's only a 20g). Good luck, sounds like you have the ingenuity to figure something like that out. Some sort of rack system would probably do it, maybe with simple sumps made out of rubbermaid containers. Post pics if you get something going.

 

[dendro982]

Thanks, everyone!
It's more like fishbowls everywhere, and from my activities all profit gets LFS .

Found a few articles and posts on making mini-fish room of a budget, looks like the main thing is to find an industrial stand (or something like that, adjustable, heavy duty and not massive) and add dehumidifier. Of course, it has nothing to do with organization, but good for a start.

Thanks again.

 

[Lotus]

We have 12 tanks, all over the house. Most are at least passable in terms of how they look, even the "breeding" tanks.

We put all our fish equipment in the wet bar that we don't use, but a set of shelves or a closet would do just as well.

Shelving units need to be really well thought out in terms of making maintenance easy. A long unit (like a really long stand) with all the tanks at the same height might work for just 5 or 6 tanks.

 

[MOsborne05]

I keep all my extra odds & ends in the basement, which isn't finished. My husband got a leftover countertop at work that he turned into a stand for me. It is 6' long and about 2' deep, and very sturdy. Right now it has a 20 gallon long, and a 10 gallon. Works great because it is deep enough to allow me to have some extra space in front when I am working on the tanks. I also have a homeade stand next to it that has a 5.5 gallon and 10 gallon. We've also added some extra shelving to existing stands, to make more room for food, dechlor, etc.

Do you have an extra closet or anything where you can make a rack?

 

[dendro982]

No extra closets, unfortunately. But idea of making enclosures for storing tools is really good. Have basement only, where the most tanks are, standing separately here and there. Stands are so far homemade, painted ribs only, with no plywood covering: my setups are changed frequently.

I tried the heavy duty shelving for home use (no bolts assembly) and don't like it. Too wide for small tanks (takes too much space) and too flimsy to be used for more, than a 2 levels, or for 20g tank, despite the manufacturer's load rating.

I thought, that going vertical, as usually advised for small spaces, could make the placement more compact. But easiness of access for maintenance and feeding is vitally important, and nothing beats waist level single shallow tanks. Maybe raising interval between top of the tank and next shelf to 1 ft/30 cm will work?

Also, it would be nice to have access from all sides, or at least at the front and back, but it could be risky to place narrow vertical shelf unit far from wall. I can bump into it by accident, moving around with bucket full of water.

The waist level tank in the middle of the basement was OK, only visually creating impression of cluttered room.

What I found on the web in the last days:
- Krib on fish rooms, that the industrial stands were usually used. Now have to find where they are sold and is it affordable or not.
- Neat looking fish room, big, but the idea could be used at smaller scale too: stone blocks with wood above it. Heavy duty wooden multilevel racks look much worse (for me).
- Possibly metal shelving along the wall, they even have some living space left. My version would be one tank on the shelf, three tanks up (with a lot of space above the tank, if it makes a sense).

Can you give a little more derails on storing long tools?
After using in the tank they are dripping wet, I placed them in the past in the bucket from the salt, with plastic strainer at the bottom. Takes too much space and visually obtrusive. Upgraded to a bathroom narrow high plastic vase (from hardware store) and spaghetti container in another room, but they are not stable and drop on the side frequently.

I feel like I'm reinventing the wheel: a lot of people before me already solved this problem, and I have to do that again from scratch.

One more thing:
I see in your links planted freshwater tanks - just as I always wanted them to be and was unable to deal with sand/gravel and plants, ever. Where can I post a FW question for you, with photo what is going on and needs correction? If you don't mind, of course.

Thank you all for the input.
Would like to see even more ideas on better organization on a budget. Keep it coming .

 

[MOsborne05]

I keep all of my long tools in my 36" stand. Most of them fit nicely at the bottom. Although, that tank is going to be saltwater soon and will have a sump/fuge in the tank, so I am going to have to figure something else out. I also have a large rubbermaid container that I use for RO/DI water changes, so I normally stick stuff in there when I'm done, if its still wet. Its about 24"+ tall, so most of the stuff fits in it.

You really should try and put doors on your tanks, you would have alot more space to store stuff, and it still looks nice when the doors are closed. Put some shelving in the stands at various heights too, that way you can keep food on one shelf, and taller stuff like dechlor on another.

Feel free to post questions in the plants section if it is dealing specifically with plants, or in the general discussion for help on your tank. We will try to help as best we can

 

[TRe]

at one point i had a 10g, 20g,30g, 55g,and 125g going but was way to much of a PITA doing 5 water changes, feeding, testing ect. and all seemed to get neglected but my reef tank which at the time was my 55g.... when i bought the house im in now i narrowed it down to just one nice tank to focus all my time and $ into and i think that was the best thing i could have done!

 

[dendro982]

Sorry for late reply, was absent.

Thank you all, very helpful information and a good food for a thought.

I did the closed stand for the ultimate tank/sump/refugium configuration. At least I thought so . It didn't worked, as expected. The stand was so fundamental work, that I can't disassemble it without sawing in a small pieces. Seriously. Have to wait for the end of season's junk removal.

I'm trying to make an optimal configuration, but reality check always changes the best and carefully researched plans.

I dream about just one tank...
But with not too much interesting animals in LFS, very few of them are interesting to keep.
Some of them require different conditions (chili coral, wasn't able to keep it in the main tank), others have to be kept apart from everybody else (sea apples), or are just plain big for a small tank (1 ft size, when opened, tube anemone, absolutely gorgeous!), and the biggest tank is unfit for a fine filter feeders (either low food density, or overload of the system with nutrients and wasting the food).

In addition, I have troubles with rectangular tanks - the only widely available, and have different plans, than ordering custom tanks for now (and even don't know the optimal configuration yet). Decisions, decisions...