advice please...building tank into a wall

heavenly damsel

heavenly damsel

Member
I have a closet under my stairs with a wall perfect to display my tank ( 55 gal). The closet is very large and would make a great work room for maintanance of the aquarium. Have any of you done this and can you advise with how to's and what problems you have had.
 
heavenly damsel

heavenly damsel

Member
Surely someone has done this. I really would like to learn from any mistakes you have made or hear feedback of whether you liked it after you were done. That is a big hole to put in my wall only to have to repair it if I don't like it.
 
jimi

jimi

Active Member
That is exactly what I did. I put a 110 in my wall under the stairs. I built the stand out of 4" concrete block. The rear of the stand inside the closet is spanned by a six foot concrete lintel to give me complete access to the sump and the front of the stand is oak trim with waynes coat.
 
saltwater in nebraska

saltwater in nebraska

Member
I'm looking at this same idea, only it's part of the utility room under my stairs instead of a closet.
I'm thinking about having a hole in the wall to view it with some doors above to allow me to feed and such from the viewing room, but the rest would be drywall up to the tank with a wood trim around the tank.
My only concern is condensation in the utility room, would this be a problem? My other question would be how large of opening above the tank would I need, the smaller the opening the better overall appearence it would have.
 
jimi

jimi

Active Member
I have had no condensation problems what so ever. I have about 13" above my tank. You need enough to allow for large rock or corals. You may want more. I made my light canopy out of 1x6 lumber. It is very easy to remove and move around because it just sits on top of the tank. The front is hinged to open up and completely out of the way.
 
salty guy

salty guy

Member
Before I sold my house I had a 125 in the family room and I did not have enough room for all of the filters and what not under the stand. The tank was a All Glass Pre Drill so I cut two small holes in my floor and ran the pluming to the basement. Once there I made huge tub (about 60gal) and had my skimmer, filters, algae tank, UV filter, and water make up unit all right there. When I needed to do water testing I went down sat at my little work bench and did my stuff. The people that bought the house continued to keep the tank. It has been nearly a year since I moved and they send me cards with pictures every now and then.
 
jsolomon

jsolomon

Member
Its odd this topic should come up at a time like this. I purchased a 92 gallon bow front with plans of building it into the wall. THe framing is all up and the tank is up and running, we have yet to close it all in because we are not sure how much of an opening to leave on top. This is a little harder task because it is a large curve (looks like a quarter section of a cirlce). When it is finished it will look really good hopefully though. I will post pictures so everyone can see.
 
triggerfool

triggerfool

Member
<a href="http://www.garf.org" target="_blank">www.garf.org</a> has an awesome article on a fella that put a 500 gallon!!!!! into his wall. Im sure even if your tank isnt of this scale, the basics are still the same. Check it out.
 
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