Picking a location for a new tank

[Panda]

We live in a 3 story townhouse -- a true 3 story, the "basement" is fully above ground and includes a garage. The main level, where the living room, dining room & kitchen are located is the 2nd floor. Currently we have two tanks, a 75g and a 56g on the 2nd floor in the living room. We would like to replace the 75g with something bigger -- somewhere in the 200 - 300g range -- which obviously can't be done on the 2nd floor. But I also don't want a big tank downstairs that we never get to enjoy because we are upstairs in the living room. So we're thinking about moving our living room downstairs. The space down stairs is smaller than upstairs (because of the garage and lost space to washer, dryer, H2O heater, etc.) and kind of oddly shaped. I've been trying to figure out how I want to do this to make the best use of the space we do have and I'm not having a lot of luck. I was hoping maybe some of the smart people here would have a good idea. Here's a rough drawing (kind of, sort of to scale) of what we are working with:

 

 

I think the "bump out" with the sliding glass door and window is pretty much unusable space because I don't think you could put a place to sit out there where you would then still be able to see the TV and aquarium in the the main part of the room.

 

I would like to put the aquarium on the shared wall with the garage because then I can pop a little hole in the drywall, run my plumbing through and keep the sump, etc. in the garage. I thought about putting the display tank actually in the wall there but that would require cutting a huge hole in the drywall and it seems like that would be a pretty big negative when selling the house. We plan to be here another 8-10-ish years but this definitely isn't the place we plan to live forever. So it seems much easier to repair a plumbing size hole than a tank size hole when it comes time to sell some day.

 

We have a 55" LCD TV and I wanted to hang it on the diagonal wall above the fireplace but my husband doesn't want to do that because of the heat from the fireplace. So right now I'm thinking about putting the TV on the 7' wall next to the fireplace, the display tank on the 11' wall that is shared with the garage and then getting a couple of those reclining theater style chairs (something like this) to put facing the TV. Since larger TV's like that are best viewed from farther away this gives us the greatest distance between the seating and the TV. It's not great because any time we had company we'd be forced to come back upstairs and use the larger living room up here - I just don't think the space downstairs is really big enough for more than 2 or 3 of those theater style seats - but I think it might be our best option.

 

Basically there are a lot of pro's to moving downstairs: We can have a bigger tank, tank maintenance can be done in the garage instead of the kitchen where it currently is, we can actually use the fireplace which we've not used once in the 4 years we've lived here, and we don't have to go downstairs every time the dogs want out. The only con is that it's not that big a space and we'd probably still have to use the upstairs living room when we have company. So I really want to make this work but I'm just not sure if my current plan is the best one.

 

Anyway, sorry this is so long but I'm looking for any other suggestions/ideas on how to arrange the room?

Edited June 19, 2012 by Panda

[icecool2]

Tough question to answer for sure. How big is the furniture you're going to put in there?

 

I think the ideal place would be on the shared wall with the garage EXCEPT for the fact that it would be too close to the fireplace IMO. So that spot is out.

 

Then I would say put it on the wall with the washer/dryer, but I don't know where the doors are and you would get glare on the TV from it.

 

You really can place the TV over the fireplace if you have a mantel that extends out a bit. If you did that, I would still put the tank on the wall with the washer/dryer.

[Panda]

Tough question to answer for sure. How big is the furniture you're going to put in there?

 

The furniture we have in the upstairs living room is definitely to big for the room downstairs so we'll be getting new furniture for this room. Then the big furniture can stay upstairs for when we have company. So size of furniture won't be an issue - that will be the last thing we do and we can just buy whatever fits. Right now I'm thinking maybe a small loveseat on the 5' wall and a couple of those theater reclining chairs like I linked above in the open space in front of the doors for the washer/dryer/etc. because they could be far enough forward that they wouldn't block those doors. That would give us seating for 4 and then if it was a bigger group we would just have to go upstairs where we can easily and comfortably seat 6-8 people.

 

 

I think the ideal place would be on the shared wall with the garage EXCEPT for the fact that it would be too close to the fireplace IMO. So that spot is out.

 

I assume this is because of the heat from the fireplace? Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. However, I'm not sure that's a problem. The fireplace is a gas fireplace, which if we don't turn the blower on I don't think will generate much heat. We obviously wouldn't use it in the summer and in the winter, if the sump is sitting directly on the cement pad in the garage it seems to me like that would have a pretty big cooling effect. Plus, we keep our thermostat set at 70 year round. Anything higher than 73-74 and I get incredibly uncomfortable so I feel like I would have a problem long before the aquarium did! Do you think any of this makes a difference or do you still think it's a bad idea?

 

 

Then I would say put it on the wall with the washer/dryer, but I don't know where the doors are and you would get glare on the TV from it.

 

Unfortunately that entire wall is taken up by two sets of double doors. The first set of doors is in front of the water heater and the furnace and the second set of doors is in front of the washer and dryer. So the entire wall is unusable for anything like an aquarium or furniture.

[smallreef]

Truthfully, i would just turn the downstairs into a 'rec room'....put the new tank down there across from the doors to outside and get a new tv and either new furniture or desk/office or a pool table...

if you use those doors to grill and stuff its right there..or heck turn it into a bar...which ever way your still going to congregate upstairs since the kitchen is there..may as well use this room for another purpose..but somewhere you still want to go.

[smallreef]

P.S. if either of you work from home you could use this space as your office and deduct a portion of your mortgage for business use...and wouldnt it be nice to have a tank to stare at all day?

[Panda]

Truthfully, i would just turn the downstairs into a 'rec room'....put the new tank down there across from the doors to outside and get a new tv and either new furniture or desk/office or a pool table...

if you use those doors to grill and stuff its right there..or heck turn it into a bar...which ever way your still going to congregate upstairs since the kitchen is there..may as well use this room for another purpose..but somewhere you still want to go.

 

Well, that's more or less the idea. 80% of the time it's just the two of us and the dogs and fish here. So the idea is for this to be the spot we hang out and watch TV together. Either way we'll have to get a new TV - either for upstairs if we bring that one down or for downstairs if we leave it where it is. Love the idea of putting a bar across from the glass doors, I hadn't thought of that! But I'd really prefer for the aquarium to be in the other part of the room if possible.

 

 

P.S. if either of you work from home you could use this space as your office and deduct a portion of your mortgage for business use...and wouldnt it be nice to have a tank to stare at all day?

 

I work from home two days a week but I've never bothered with the tax deduction because it's just me sitting on my laptop on the couch or at the dining room table.

 

 

 

[Integral9]

If you garage is climate controlled, I'd use the wall adjoining the garage and then use the garage as my fish room. If it were my house, I'd do a built-in cube tank in the wall ajoining the garage at the corner where the hallway empties into the rec' room. You'd have 2 sides of the tank to look at and you could use your garage as the fish room.

 

If it's not climate controlled, I think I'd be asking myself how much I really need a bathroom on that floor or how much it would take to climate control the garage....

 

fwiw: with a 135 and over 500W of lights over it, my basement can become a bit of a heat island in my house and it can get a little too humid for comfort down there.

[Panda]

If you garage is climate controlled, I'd use the wall adjoining the garage and then use the garage as my fish room. If it were my house, I'd do a built-in cube tank in the wall ajoining the garage at the corner where the hallway empties into the rec' room. You'd have 2 sides of the tank to look at and you could use your garage as the fish room.

 

If it's not climate controlled, I think I'd be asking myself how much I really need a bathroom on that floor or how much it would take to climate control the garage....

 

fwiw: with a 135 and over 500W of lights over it, my basement can become a bit of a heat island in my house and it can get a little too humid for comfort down there.

 

Garage is sort of climate controlled, I guess. There are no vents into the garage but it shares two walls and the ceiling with our interior and a third wall with the townhouse next door. So the only wall exposed to outside temperatures is the garage door. It is not as warm as the inside of the house in the winter and it is not as cool as the inside of the house in the summer but it stays warm enough in winter and cool enough in summer that we used to put the dogs out there when we weren't home.

 

I think it would be beautiful to have a cube built into that corner but I just really feel like that would be horrible to deal with when it came time to sell this house. Granted that's several years down the road but it's kind of anxiety inducing for me to think about. Plus, that might be a bit over our heads for a DIY project.

[Rosco's Reefs]

I like the garage wall idea, with sump, etc. in the garage as stated. The one thing I would mention that I did was run a water line out of the utility into the garage and over to the sump to facilitate water change. If you had access to a drain close to the sump even better. Thx and good luck.

 

Roscoe