Building A Fish House

Building a fish house is quite an undertaking. You need to be very organised and also have an open and flexible mind as the project takes shape. The cost of a fish house is difficult to generalise about, but in my experience most projects go well over budget!

Shed or Permanent Building ?

If you have a garage or outbuilding empty then these are ideal for a fish house. Sheds are OK, but fish houses are humid places and wood will eventually rot.

Planning is Key

Planning the project is paramount. You have to consider provision of water, drainage, electricity, insulation and so on. How many tanks you want, will it be individual tanks, a system or a combination?

The biggest challenge I have found is getting the plumbing requirements correct, it doesn't matter how many times you write it down there is always something missing! It is essential to the overall success of the project that you take your time, correct any errors whilst you go along and seek help if necessary.

Our Fish House

Over the years we have had several systems. Our latest was finished in April 2007, so I reckon the easiest way to explain it all is to show you what we did.

The building is 30 feet long and 12 feet wide. When I took it on there was no roof, so we put a new one on. Then 2" x 2" batons were fixed to the walls, 2" polystyrene sheets were applied to the walls and roof, then tongue and grooved PVC cladding was added to finish the interior.

We also installed a 12" extractor fan with a humistat. A large butler sink, water supply and a dedicated electrical circuit.

Tanks and Racking

After years of large tanks we decided to install as many small tanks as we could so that we could separate our fish not just into different strains but also separate the sizes. Water capacity is important in heavily stocked systems so to achieve both aims we decided on 30" x 15" x 15" tanks but installed them end on so as to maximise space. The racking is second hand pallet racking with ply-board shelves. On the other wall I have installed a single row of medium tanks 48" x 18" x 15", these sit on top of 2" box steel section supported by concrete pillars. There is also a rack of 2 litre fry tanks.

Plumbing

It is essential in an aquatic set up that you use suitable pipe work. By this I mean pipe work that is non toxic to fish. There are several suppliers of this, but we use TMC pipe as it is second to none in our opinion.

I drilled the tanks to accept a ¾" tank connector. Each tank drains into a common pipe (2") which carries the water to the sump. The sump contains some filter media and it has a bottom drain for occasional flushing to waste. The sump also has an over flow drilled into it, which takes excess water to the drain.

Filtration

We use Sequence pumps to return the water to the tanks via 1-1/2" inch pipe. Each tank is serviced by a dedicated tap. The water passes through a 2kw heater and during the colder months the fish house has two radiators to help heat the space.

Sitting above the sump is two wet and dry filters, one filled with bio-balls and the other with sintered glass. We also have several air pumps to ensure saturated oxygen levels remain high at all times.

Pros and Cons

The larger the volume of water you have to work with the easier keeping Discus is. A system can be as small or as large as you like, you can add to it or reduce it as you see fit. Systems are not cheap to run and must be maintained properly to ensure they work properly. Over all with years of experience I feel the benefits of a systemised set up far outweighs any disadvantages that may exist.