Benny503 Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 Hello all, My gf and I are starting to look for a house here in GP, since the housing market still low we plan to get a house before it go back up. Next couple weeks we will do a lot of house searching. My goal is to buy a one level house with 3 bedrooms and two baths. Ideally I want my bedroom sharing the same wall with my living room. I want to remove the wall between my bedroom and my livingroom and replace it with a in wall reef tank that is a divider, we can see the reef tank from either side of the room. I did a google search for room divider reef tank and its not giving me a lot of informations. Does anyone know where I can get a lot of information about it or lots of pictures for the setup? Thanks, Benny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePremiumAquarium Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 Benny, Check out some of the Large Reef tanks in the special interest forumn over on Reefcentral. They have several large tanks that are used as dividers or inwall systems. Are you basically going to have two walls with the tank inwall to both of them? Equipment housed underneath? You could build in storage and lighting access pretty easily. Fun project! Garrett Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benny503 Posted September 9, 2009 Author Share Posted September 9, 2009 Thanks garrett, my idea is to share a fish tank between the living room and bedroom. My gf wants to buy a new house so we dont have to do anywork on it. All the new house these days doesn't have basement so there is no way that I can do the plumbing underneath the house. I am thinking or building large sump under the tank and all the electrical above the lights. Well I dont know how this setup is going to be so I am going to do a lot of research and look for a house that have a bedroom sharing the wall with the livingroom. I found a few house that had a office space sharing with the family room but my gf wants to have a walkin closeth and a huge spa in the the masterbed bathroom. Seaching for a dream house it not easy ;-( But anyway thank you for your input. I will check out rc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gradth Posted September 9, 2009 Share Posted September 9, 2009 You can check out my build thread. Mine is far from being done, and may not be exactly what your looking for, but its a room divider. Just check my sig. Again, far from done, actually hoping to work on the final stuff next week while im on vacation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spectra Posted September 10, 2009 Share Posted September 10, 2009 Check out RC like Garrett said as there are a ton of builds on there. As stated your best way of doing this is to frame 2 walls and have a laod of storage in the wall for both lights and a sump. If you have a single story house even better as you can vent the heat from the lights out through the ceiling to the outside via a sofet vent. All you need is a nice fan in the attic that way no noise is heard in the house. Also look into trying to have one end of the wall on the exterior of the house that way you could frame a small door on the outside and have access to the sump area. This wa you could almost frame the entire interior part of it so only small access is needed. If the sump needed to be taken out just slide it out through the door (hope this makes sence(scratch)) I have thought about a dream tank and there is so many things that can be done it is mind boggleing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saltfinsax Posted September 10, 2009 Share Posted September 10, 2009 To bad you don't want to live here in Vancouver. We have two house's with Masters that are up against the dinning room, then spills into the living room. Plus both houses have unfinised daylight basments under them as well. Couple things to look for when getting the house for this. Is the wall you want to take out a bearing wall? That would mean you have to put a beam up top and then carry the load down to the ground from the sides. Do you realy want to be able to see through your tank and see whats going on in the bed room, hehe, guest and future kids. Wireing and plumbing can allmost always be moved but can run up the cost. Gool luck house hunting and allways lookup who build it and try to find out more about them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePremiumAquarium Posted September 10, 2009 Share Posted September 10, 2009 To bad you don't want to live here in Vancouver. We have two house's with Masters that are up against the dinning room, then spills into the living room. Plus both houses have unfinised daylight basments under them as well. Couple things to look for when getting the house for this. Is the wall you want to take out a bearing wall? That would mean you have to put a beam up top and then carry the load down to the ground from the sides. Do you realy want to be able to see through your tank and see whats going on in the bed room, hehe, guest and future kids. Wireing and plumbing can allmost always be moved but can run up the cost. Gool luck house hunting and allways lookup who build it and try to find out more about them. Very good points to consider. I think you could easily build a drop down drape or something to prevent people from seeing through to the other side if needed. I was thinking about this when I was imagining the tank build earlier and forgot to mention it. Very good point on the load bearing wall. Make sure that it isn't one. It is such a headache! Just do all of the thinking you possibly can. Do lots of research and read as much as possible! This will be very cool if done correctly. Garrett Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spectra Posted September 10, 2009 Share Posted September 10, 2009 If you are building new then a bearing wall is no big deal(just remember most housing contractors work off of a set print so once you start changing things the $$$$ roll) Once changed they have to have them engineered again and it is not cheap. If a remodel then all you have to do is a temp wall on both side while you finish the new one. I have been around the business for over 20 years and it is not really a big deal. I am not a framer but have seen it enough to do it myself. Just remember no question is a stupid one and get all the info you can before starting out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benny503 Posted September 10, 2009 Author Share Posted September 10, 2009 You can check out my build thread. Mine is far from being done, and may not be exactly what your looking for, but its a room divider. Just check my sig. Again, far from done, actually hoping to work on the final stuff next week while im on vacation. I read your build thread... still following it :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benny503 Posted September 10, 2009 Author Share Posted September 10, 2009 Check out RC like Garrett said as there are a ton of builds on there. Scott, I did check out RC at the large tank. I got hook into some huge tank and off track of looking for divider tank ;-) I am having too much headach from dreaming of having a large tank from RC :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benny503 Posted September 10, 2009 Author Share Posted September 10, 2009 To bad you don't want to live here in Vancouver. We have two house's with Masters that are up against the dinning room, then spills into the living room. Plus both houses have unfinised daylight basments under them as well. Couple things to look for when getting the house for this. Is the wall you want to take out a bearing wall? That would mean you have to put a beam up top and then carry the load down to the ground from the sides. Do you realy want to be able to see through your tank and see whats going on in the bed room, hehe, guest and future kids. Wireing and plumbing can allmost always be moved but can run up the cost. Gool luck house hunting and allways lookup who build it and try to find out more about them. I wish I can find a house like your then all of mine time will spend on building the tank. Two places in the house I spend most of my time are livingroom and bedroom. During the day I can look at my tank in my livingroom and at night I can look at in the bed room while I am laying relaxing on my bed. I have no kid right now and just me and my gf so no need for privacy... (naughty) Like Garrett said I can build a drop down drape when there are guest inside the house :-) For the cost I am not too worry about it. I am not puting it all at once. Once I got the house I will follow everyone else slowly put it togeter :-) A year will be ok too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smann Posted September 10, 2009 Share Posted September 10, 2009 When you are doing your research look for tanks the size you want and are "in" the bedroom, see what they have done for noise control. Our smaller tanks are easier to control the noise they make but once you get to 150-180 and up you're looking at large pumps, skimmer,fans,sump all bigger and louder. My tank seems fine when folks are over, tv's on etc but come out after everyone gone to bed and I would have to say it's LOUD. Not to mention during hot weather the chiller is comming on all night every hour and what sounds like a trickle right now is water pouring late at night. I like scotts idea of framing walls on both sides, even moving it out a few feet and if its on a outside wall this could extend on out to a small sump room also to move the equip out. Good luck look forward to seeing it come together PS I'd hate to see you sleeping alone if your GF had to move into the spare bedroom!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benny503 Posted September 10, 2009 Author Share Posted September 10, 2009 Thanks Steve, I have seen people use sound blocking materials to keep their pump inside the stand quiet. That will increase the heat trapping inside the stand, but I can ran a ventilate from the outside. I am more concern about is the wall that I want to take out a bearing wall, how can I tell it is a bearing wall? Where can I get that information? I am pretty sure most of the real estate agent wont know (I never asked them about this yet they may know). This tank from RC is what I really want to do, the only thing is it's not complete yet. It show the bed room and the livingroom sharing a wall. Where can I find a house like that? ;-( http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=1451069&perpage=25&pagenumber=7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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