Fishroom Buildout (1 Viewer)

[steveb]

Thought I would share what I have been doing.... I tried posting as slide show but could never get it to show in order. I would like to thank my wife's Uncle Brent for spending part of his vacation (he does construction) helping me.

No that is not me

Now to finish cleaning, moving junk to storage/throwing it away and getting an electrician out to run a sub panel and circuits. Will then install a couple of portable A/C's along with a vent fan on a humidty contoller.

 

[fishboyt]

Awesome! What tanks are you going to put in there?

 

[steveb]

My 90, 4 - 96"x24"x12" plus some breeders and whatever else I can fit .

 

[fjwaquarium]

WOW. That is nice Steve, I like the frag tank size.

 

[steveb]

Thanks fishboyt and Dennis!

 

[mike13oy]

looks good Steve.

 

[steveb]

Thanks Mike.

 

[mwilliams62]

Well Steve it is a month now since the last post how is the fish room coming along????? Any new pics yet?

 

[steveb]

None. To many kid activities... The only thing I have done is paint the wall facing the garage and take another load to the storage unit.

 

[stealthfightrf17]

Nice, I can't wait till I can build my tank room.

 

[RocketSurgeon]

... and getting an electrician out to run a sub panel and circuits. ....

You've done all this other work, you don't want to do the electrical too?

 

[steveb]

I'm a little scared of doing the electrical by myself (correctly sizing wire, bending conduit - or do I even need it?, installing breakers into panel [but I think I can kill the panel w/the main breaker]). But if someone wants to mentor me I would be up for it! I got a quote of $1875 for 12 plugs and six 15 amp breakers today -- about fell over thought I was going into defib...

 

[RocketSurgeon]

I gotta a machine here to get you going again! Batteries are good for 6 jolts.

If you have an idea of what you want, we can get a parts list together. There are a few licensed electricians on this site who, I'm sure, would be glad to talk you through a few things (such as wire size).

I'm just thinking $1800+ buys lots of earrings (or shoes or purses)!

I'm all for getting several quotes and picking their brains how they would do it. Then decide if it is beneficial (other than financially) to do it yourself.

$1800 buys a real nice generator (as hurricane season is upon us).

 

[steveb]

Oh yeah its not going to get done for quite some time - if ever at $1875.

What I spec'd originally was 12 duplex GFCI sockets in six quad boxes (3 on south wall, 3 on north wall). Surface mounted to the wall, wire in conduit (plastic or metal) with each quad going to its own 120v, 15A breaker. Breaker panel is about 40ft from this location in the garage.

I Have basic questions like if I use 3/4" or 1" conduit can I pull the wire for all three circuits through it since they are all 120 and 15A? What wire guage do I need to run a max of 100ft from breaker to outlet? stuff like that...

 

[crvz]

How many independent circuits are you thinking? Six 15A circuits is substantial, you could easily do 4 and have plenty of power for a rather large system. And any reason to be at 15A breakers instead of 20A?

12AWG wire should be fine for that (if not overkill). And what's the conduit for? Are you doing a wall mounted run, or will these wires be inside the wall? If the former, than I get it. And is the breaker box in the garage, so you arent going through an exterior wall?

If you're using romex (plastic sheathed electrical cable), I would suspect a 1" conduit would be inadequate for 6 lines. You should be able to run them all together, though.

This seems relatively straight forward to me if I'm properly understanding your idea. So much so that I'd probably be stupid enough to DIY it. But, if I paid someone, it wouldnt be near the $1800 quote you got... probably closer to 1/3 that.

 

[Moto456r]

I agree with the 12AWG but that is rated for 20amps so I would throw the 20amp breakers in it. For constant draws like fishtanks and things I would just keep the draw on the line below 85% (17amps). Those wires get hot when you run them upwards of 95%. You may run the risk of other problems down the road.

The conduit is cheap, copper is where the money is going to go. You can find that stuff about $60 per 100' if not cheaper if you look around. Plastic conduit is cheaper but you have to take into account all the pieces you need to make your bends metal you can do it yourself.

If I had to guess you would spend around $300 to do it yourself (not including beer).

 

[steveb]

I'm trying to think ahead... To start w/with I will have 10 250w MH. Every two lamps draws 5.5 A continuous (5x5.5=27.5A). I am sure I am going to need one and probably two 12000 BTU A/C's for the room and I think they draw around 5A continuous (10A) . I will also have several reeflo darts running (4x1.8=7.2A) plus other misc. pumps, light movers etc. which works out to about 3 15A breakers. So I figured an additional 3 would provide capacity for growth and unforeseen items and also keep the breakers and wire from running so warm.

How many independent circuits are you thinking? Six 15A circuits is substantial, you could easily do 4 and have plenty of power for a rather large system. And any reason to be at 15A breakers instead of 20A?

I thought 20 required a goofy plug.

12AWG wire should be fine for that (if not overkill). And what's the conduit for? Are you doing a wall mounted run, or will these wires be inside the wall? If the former, than I get it. And is the breaker box in the garage, so you arent going through an exterior wall?

Yes exterior run. Breaker is in the garage about 20 feet from the room.

If you're using romex (plastic sheathed electrical cable), I would suspect a 1" conduit would be inadequate for 6 lines. You should be able to run them all together, though.

Romex is not needed in conduit.

This seems relatively straight forward to me if I'm properly understanding your idea. So much so that I'd probably be stupid enough to DIY it. But, if I paid someone, it wouldnt be near the $1800 quote you got... probably closer to 1/3 that.

I am willing to DIY it - my concerns are sizing wire correctly and transitioning conduit from surface mount into the flush mounted breaker panel correctly. And also to make sure everything is to code so that if and when we ever sell this house its not going to get dinged by an inspector for having improper electrical work.



Four 20 A circuits may make more sense.

 

[crvz]

Here's what I did. I have four 20A circuits in my fish room. But from there, I ran tons of 12AWG (I think it was 12... it may have been 14AWG) wire inside conduits throughout the room to power the pumps, lights, heaters, AC, etc. I bought 1500 feet of wire (500 each of green, black, and white) for about $100. It works fine, I used the PVC conduit and built wall mount electrical panels to mount all my hardware and install a number of dedicated plugs. These electrical panels just plug into the wall outlets that were already there. You can see a few images of the since organized mess on this page.

In my case, I ran braided wire and soldered the ends when terminating them in the plugs because it was considerably easier to manipulate braided wire through the conduit. And I was running north of 30 wires per 1" conduit, so flexibility was important. In your case, I would go with solid copper lines since you're going into the breaker box and you'll be running higher amperage through them.

You may consider doing all the run yourself, then hire an electrician to do the connections inside the breaker box. You may have trouble finding someone to do just part of the job (for warranty/liability reasons, most trades like to do 100% of a project), but the $1800 seems rather ludicrous.

 

[steveb]

Thanks for the feedback and the link - yeah 1800 aint happenen. How many portable A/C's did you end up using and how are they working so far?

 

[steveb]

Was each quad on that board tied to a 20amp circuit?[/img]