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In-Wall builds (1 Viewer)

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insacron

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Was wondering who here has an in-wall tank. I'm probably going to be moving here in the next month or two and I'm thinking an in-wall could be a ton of fun. I'm wondering if people have pictures so I can see what others have done. The only in-wall build I've followed was Melevsreef.com.

Thanks
 
I had two in-wall setups at one time. A 190g and a 375g.

The picture frame style while it may look sleeker just isn't practical. It's really tough to work on from the back only and hard to aquascape or postion things when you can't see from the front. Probably not a huge issue when a small tank but large tanks it's not very practical to do just the picture frame look.

Both my where the same design. I had doors on the bottom only to keep symetrical looking but only used the top doors.

The major downside to in-wall is when trying to sell or list a house. So now while I do still have the fish room, I just plumb through the wall. Our basement has waynescot (if that's how you spell it ) so nail up a new section when time to leave to cover the holes. There were several times where we thought we where moving and having a big tank + big hole was an issue..
 
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David, what I was thinking about was a false wall, and putting the tank in the false wall, do you think that would work better?
 
False wall meaning a mini- fish room behind it ? If so yes, It's really really nice to be able to leave fish stuff always out and a place for your tools/equipement ( Buckets, ro tanks, quarantine tanks etc ) that nobody sees. It one of those things that once you have it you'll never go back.
 
When we built our home, we didn't have the money to have the builder finish the basement for us (out 1st home, lack of funds, ect.....$$$$$) so we eventually did it ourselves. This is kinda how I did mine....

Figured out where I wanted the tank and equipment....
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Then we put the stand in place and literally built a wall around it...
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The thing to keep in mind though is that if you ever sell the house or the tank, you end up with this:
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Like David mentioned, tanks like this are not the easiest to work on. I did find though that it was 10x's easier to plant frags and aquascape with the pumps turned off, and when the pumps were turned on, I had a clear plastic bowl to help see into the tank. In my case, I sold my tank, but have no plans to move. I am just going to patch the wall and turn my fish room into a storage closet.
 
Soltaker, any chance you have close ups? I'm really interested to see how you coped with the fact that the tank has trim?
 
I am tagging along for this discussion as I built my hopuse and design the unfinished basement for building a fish room, but was planning to have three sides outside of the wall and only the back in the wall. I had the extra floor drain placed where the tank will be going as well as a fresh air return from the air exchanger.
 
insacron said:
Soltaker, any chance you have close ups? I'm really interested to see how you coped with the fact that the tank has trim?
Click to expand...

I don't actually. I would have to recommend going to HD or Menards and looking at what they have in stock for trim and work from there. The downfall in my case is that I had the sheetrock flush with the tank trim. Instead, what I should have done was have the wall / stand built with a slight recess. Greg Shields did this with his acrylic 450 and had some really nice trim around his tank. I don't remember how wide it was, but IIRC it was at least wide enough to set a beer can on. Wish I had pics of that, but it's been a few years. Maybe someone else has some saved.
 
I've got a 90 gal. inwall in my basement. I do like the look, if I were to do it again I would put doors in the front above the top of the tank to make it a little easier to vac. the tank as I have created many frags while vac the tank.
Here's a couple of pics.
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Ours isn't really in-wall, but it's in-bookcase. :) I've since taken the bottom two drawers to the right of the tank out and put the fronts back on so it looks like they're there. I'm plumbing stuff through that 'tunnel' to my furnace/fishroom that's over there (next to the stairs). I like that tank blends into the space instead of sitting in it and yet I still have access to hood and sump.

Having a fishroom is huge! It keeps everything looking tidy and gives you a nice place to make messes. Plus the spousal approval factor goes up cause they don't have to see, hear, and in some cases smell the guts of the setup. :)
 
Mine is a 75g built into the narrow space underneath my basement stairs. It started out as a 55g FOWLR, but I found I could spend far more money on it if I moved to softies and then, sps:) 29g sump, SWC 160 skimmer, 250w mh with Phoenix 14ks and 2 T5s round it out. The closet it's in backs up to our utility room so it was easy to add a drain for water changes and an ro/di system for new water. Everything is contained in this closet, but the size of it makes it feel a little like a space station experiment lab. I like the built in effect in the room, but because of the support framing for the stairs, I was unable to build access panels in the front which makes working in the tank a little challenging(well okay, I probably could, but I really hate the idea of trying to re-configure my lighting to do so). On the plus side, the family room downstairs is more of a hang out area, so having it built in keeps it out of the traffic flow and I don't have to try to make everything fit underneath or inside of a canopy.
 

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JVB,

That looks very, very nice.

One big question I have for people with their tanks in a family room.

If I have full surround sound, sub woofers and the works, will it be a problem for the tank when I am watching a moving that is loud and rumbling?
 
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