New Fish Room -Reply

[William Vannerson <William_Vannerson@ama-assn.org>]

>>... throw in your suggestion!<<

First, take lots of pictures so we can vicariously live your dream!

Among other tips I've heard, lots of GFI outlets.  You should consider
putting in separate circuits for the fishroom.  If you have a box with
circuit breakers, as apposed to fuses, you could use a GFI breaker. 
Then the entire circuit will be protected.  This is good for lighting too if
you use individual strip lights on the tanks.  I recall one story of a fish
keeper who instinctively grabbed (successfully) a strip light as it fell into
an open tank.  Luckily the GFI breaker tripped immediately.

Seal the floor with a good paint or an epoxy flooring.  Concrete is porous
and dirty water will be "absorbed" and contribute to the overall odor.  A
floor squeegee might be a nice addition to push water towards the drain.

If you plan on central filtration, consider running two sets of pipes.  One
for soft water and another for neutral or hard water.  Also, use flexible
tubing as water leads from the supply pipes to the tanks and as waste
returns to the drains.  This will let you take tanks on and off line easily. 
Jim Robinson's presentation in Cincy this summer on his system was
great.  Simple and easy to follow.  Carl Doering in Detroit filmed it so you
might want to give him a call if you're interested.

Provide some comfort for yourself.  Aside from the stereo and fridge,
which were already suggested, plan for a couple of chairs or stools so
you and your friends can be comfortable while enjoying your fish.  A
phone with a speaker phone capability would be nice.

A bookshelf, a cabinet for dry food and meds (with a lock if small
children may be present), a small filing cabinet for records, a white board
or chalk boards to write notes or schedules.

Lastly, a wall calendar with each of the apisto list members' names
penciled in for trips to visit ;-)

Actually, one of those wall planners from a stationary store would be
nice, perhaps in place of a white board.  Not only could you schedule
water changes, note when pairs spawn, when bags of peat need to be
wetted (killies), but you could also track shows, auctions and LFS sales.

Finally, I'd consider adding a PC. I've toyed with the idea of networking a
couple of PCs in my house.  I now have two, my original 6 year old box
that's in the kid's room and my new one in our 4th bedroom.  When I build
my fishroom, which won't be anywhere along the scope of your's, I'm
thinking of have the monitor and keyboard in the room with the CPU in the
adjoining room to protect it from the humidity.  It sounds crazy but with
the price of hardware coming down, you can get a low end box for
under $500, maybe even less second hand.  The PC would be useful for
keeping notes and for reference (I often copy interesting threads and
web pages onto disk for future reference.)  Networking would be nice to
allow for printing to the other PC's printer and exchanging files.  The
networking hardware can be bought new for about $100.

Oh, one more thing... have fun!!

 
Bill Vannerson
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/william_vannerson


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