Hi everybody, joey here again and welcome back.
So Over the next couple of weeks, I'm wanted to give you guys an inside look into my own
personal aquarium hobby.
In today's video, I'm going to share with you guys how I moved 540 gallon aquarium.
Some of you might remember that tank that I build from built over a year ago.
Next week, we are going to take a look at my personal fish.
Finally, 2 weeks from now, we're going to take a look at the details of my aquariums
and how they work and how I manage them.
Last summer, I came to the conclusion that I have ignored for a while now; I am out of
room.
So up until recently, I took up my entire basement, I used the main space in the basement,
known as our second living room to film my videos as well as build projects in.
I then used my only bedroom in the basement to house my 540 gallon aquarium and it took
up the entire room.
I used my utility room for the rest of my aquariums.
So essentially, I took up the entire basement just for my hobby.
Now that accounts for 50% of my house.
I then used the upstairs living room as my office.
So I decided to rent a large dumpster and clean out my entire garage and then turn that
into a fish room.
So I started with doing just that.
I completely cleaned out my entire garage so I could start with a clean slate.
However, once the garage was ready, I ended up changing my mind.
The initial costs of turning it into a fish room, not to mention the monthly running costs
became extremely prohibitive.
So instead I forced to come back to the house and simply use the space that I do have more
efficiently.
I calculated that if I simply rearranged all my aquariums, I could fit them all into my
utility room.
That would mean moving the540 gallon aquarium out of the bedroom.
That would leave me that bedroom to film my videos, as well as do my projects and use
as my office.
Committing to that change means I would go from using over 60% of the house to less than
20%.
The plan was to build the 540 gallon into the wall, and then line all the rest of my
aquariums around it long the perimeter of the walls.
I figured all I would have to do is Rip down the wall, move the aquariums out of the utility
room, move the 540 gallon aquarium into it and then build the wall around it.
There was only one obstacle with that wall.
In the center of it there was a supporting beam that supported the floor above me.
Instead of removing it and looking into other ways of supporting the floor I simply worked
around it.
What I did was just placed the tank beside it.
So all I had to do was rip one side of the wall out.
I started with taking the door off, then ripping the wall out.
Obviously, I first turned the power off to that wall before I started.
With the wall now gone, I removed all of my aquariums out of my utility room.
Now I was ready to move the big tank.
However, I needed a new stand.
I needed it for two reasons.
The current stand I had was only half the height that I really wanted to go with to
place it in the wall.
The second reason was, it would also be much easier to pick the tank up and move it onto
a preexisting stand, than to pick it up, put it on the floor, move the stand, pick it up
again and place the tank on that stand.
So that's what I did, I built an entirely new stand.
I built that stand out of 6 by 2 lumbers.
Now you guys will remember that I have built previous stands out of 2 by 4 and I actually
used the exact same design as those stands, just with a bigger lumber and I added some
center supports.
This stand only cost me about $150.
Now I could actually get the tank ready to move.
I started out by setting up a temporary aquarium for my freshwater stingrays.
I did have a 50 gallon drum full of biological media that would have to sit for 1 or 2 weeks.
I wasn't sure how long it would take for me to get help to move it's I made sure I kept
the filter alive by keeping it running on its self and I kept feeding it pure ammonia.
The next part was easy.
Drain the tank and remove all of the plumbing.
Moving the tank was not as simple.
Luckily I have some great friends that were willing to coordinate their schedules to a
time and date that we could all move the tank.
On the count of three, we all lifted.
It much easier than we had thought it would be.
Seeing as how this tank weighs 500 pounds while empty, I was certainly expecting it
to be far more difficult.
We positioned it in place and that was that.
With the tank now in place, I simply set it back exactly the way I had it before.
I could now move onto putting the new wall up.
I built a new wall frame around the tank using 2 by 4.
I then I screwed on the drywall and then added in a door.
Building up the wall was relatively cheap.
Since I only needed a small section of the wall, it cost me less than $100 to do.
Mainly because I already had the door.
Now you will notice that the door is actually upside down, and this is due to the reason
on me needing the door to open a specific way.
It was either install it upside down, or buy a new door.
Obviously I chose to use what I had.
After that, I painted the entire wall, and while I was at it, I painted the whole room.
With the wall now up and painted, I could see just how bad of a dry waller I actually
was.
I will probably end up doing a bit more sanding, painting, and add in some trim around the
aquarium.
But I'm in no rush to do that.
The next thing I wanted to do in the room was to make filming videos to be a much easier
process.
To be honest, I don't even want to admit how long it takes me to make these videos.
So if I can save any amount of time by cutting out simple processes, I most certainly will.
Instead of constantly needing to mess with large stands and backdrops, I decided to paint
the entire back wall behind me, Chroma green.
Which means I can still do green screen videos but only now, I don't have to worry about
setting up any equipment, and I can just jump in front of the camera start filming.
Which makes the videos process a lot easier for me and I can produce a lot more videos.
I also wanted to add in some personal touches to the room.
I know a local artist that does amazing charcoal drawings.
I asked if she could draw my stingrays and frame it.
Needless to say, she did!
I am beyond impressed.
I chose to have this done for one specific reason, I thought it would be really cool
to have some of my personal favorite fish that I own, turned into art.
I'm going to leave a link in the description to her fan page for anyone interested in having
her do something for them.
Now I prefer a very clean and simple environment obviously, but if you think there is something
I should add, or something you would have done differently to this room, let me know
in the comment section below.
So that's about as far as we'll go with this update.
Join me next week when we take a look at my personal collection of fish.
I'm also going to share with you a personal story on my journey to get those fish that
took me 7 years to do it.
I think you will find that video to be both interesting as well as inspiring.
Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed the video.
I definitely want to thank you for watching, and we'll see you next time.