The "Breeding Barn Build"

When we moved last year one of the things that moved me to purchase the house was the 2 story barn that was in the back yard of the house.  Here is the picture of the house
 

 
 
I immediately thought that I could build a pretty extensive breeding room in the barn.  When I got things reset back up however, I rejected the idea since it didn't have running water to it and it didn't want to walk the 40ft out to it in the winter.  Now that spring has come.  I have renewed my interesting in turning this into a breeding space
 
Here a couple of other pics of the space. 
 
Downstairs from garage door looking in
 

 
Upstairs picture (I am not planning on using this part for fish)

 

Alright,  here is the brass tacks.
 
Heating and Cooling:
First of all, lets say that the room will be insulated in the floor and the ceiling.  I will also wall behind the garage door.  The only access point into the bard will be from the door on the side.  I will also need to replace the side door since it rather old and worn. Here is a pic
 

 
The room will be heated by a space heater of some sort and I will install and Air Conditioner in the room.  There will also be a ceiling fan installed in the room.  The room is a little over 300 sq ft.  so it should be fine to heat and cool this way.
 
Humidity Contol
The plan here is to run a bathroom fan that is controlled with a humidistat
 
Water and water storage
I don't plan on running any plumbing out to the barn.  The barn sits on a lower elevation than the rest of the house.  It would be pretty difficult to get water and sewer out to the barn.  I will have a hose that I will run from the house to the barn.  I plan on getting a rather large water storage container so that I won't have to use the hose that often.

Mike-

You could actually use that lower elevation to your advantage and run a semi-permanent waterline. Put a solenoid valve at the house and a switch in the barn. When you want water flip the switch to "enable" your water and use as normal. Key is in winter to turn switch off and allow water to flow in sink until the line is drained and will not freeze. Bury the line just enough so you don't have to move it to mow.

Wow, big project Mike!

You could put a lot of fish out there.  I am green with jealosy.
 
The hard part will not be getting the water in, it will be getting the water out.  Is there any kind of drain nearby?

The water out deal is exactly the sticking point I am having with my proposed building. Are you on city sewage where if you really got serious you could tap into it?

I also think you should use the 2nd story for a culture and microscope lab. Great opportunity to add skylights to provide natural sunlight to phyto cultures which was recommended to me for my layout.

You could even put an office with a nice soft chair and big screen tv. If you add water and sewage you could also put a bathroom. Get a fridge for "pops" and food and you won't ever have to leave Camelot!

Why does that sound good to me?

Awesome Mike!  Looks like a lot of work, but it will pay off in the long run!

-Adam

My answer for water removal isn't a very good one.  I am going to drain the water change water to an area of weeds behind the barn.  My plan is to water change about every 2 months or so.  Installing full plumbing would be a massive and expensive undertaking that I am not prepared to do. 
 
As for the upstairs, I was thinking of some sort of office or something upstairs.  That project will have to be for another year.  Also, I would want to put some sort of reinforcement it I wanted to do anything of substantial weight up there.

Your area of weeds will soon become an area of mud, since you would be "salting the earth".  Nothing will then grow there, and you could have erosion problems.  Any other ideas? Is there a drain or a street downhill from the barn that you could divert the water to?

There really isn't any good place to put it

Can you carry buckets, or pump it uphill to your house drain?

It will take a decent volume of water for it to kill off everything. I used to dump all my water change 5g buckets in one area and it took a lot for the salt to take effect. If you really only do it every couple months and you run maybe your RO waste water on it to dilute I am going to say you will be ok. If you find yourself dumping large volumes more frequently or daily small changes it may be a problem. I would advise against running it down a road drain or anything. The salt will leave a stain and others may get upset.

If you are ok with the whole dumping waste water into a garden and eating the produce you could plant asparagus in the area and the salt will be fine. When I was a kid part of my job was to salt an asparagus bed. Apparently it's salt tolerant and fish waste is also an excellent fertilizer I have heard. So more water changes equal no weeding and a great crop!

 
Depending on how ambitious I am feeling I dump between 50-150g of saltwater a week into my back yard and you wouldn't know the difference.  I hear a lot of people say it will kill the grass but I have been dumping my water changes from the clownhouse for almost 4 years now.

You need to talk to David Durr...

It is kind of like the clownhouse on steroids

Kathy is right.In the old times,salt was spread over the fields of the enemy,to ruin them for good.
You could bury a garbage can or fill an outside wading pool.When they get full,you must pump the water to your drain.

There might be local ordinances against that too. If I recall, Trop had some issues with SW disposal. Much higher volume than you're talking but...

http://www.fishtalpropagations.com/#!home/mainPage
"Making captive breeding easier."

I don't think on the hobbyist level the volume of saltwater in a city drain is any kind of problem.  If there was a well nearby, it might be, though.  I am no expert on these kinds of things.

You could put in a "dry well".  That's what I did when we added on the greenhouse, which is attached to the house, adjacent to the fish room.  I have a utility sink in the greenhouse where I dump my used saltwater, and that drains into a dry well about 20 feet away from the greenhouse.

I google "dry well" looks like an interesting idea.  I wouldn't need a huge container to make one.  I might go that route.  We will have to see.

Mine is a cubic yard, and filled with crushed rock.  There is a buried pipe, perforated for the last half of the run, that goes from the sink in the greenhouse to the dry well.

Mike,
 
They are very easy but labor intensive. (digging)
 
If you need help, shout!

-Adam

Thanks Adam!

Well, the "Breeding Barn Build has now officially begun.  First order of business was getting the old wooden door replaced with a new steel one.  Here is the pic of the new door installed. (I will get some paint on the outside trim when it is a little warmer)
 

 
You can find a pic of the old door further back in the thread.
The next order of business will be to get all of the junk out of the barn.

Nice work. Looks good.

Like Adam said mike if you need help let us know. We would be more then happy to help. 

Cool,  thanks guys.  I don't think I would need any help until it's time to drywall

Did a little bit of cleaning out in the barn.  I took a truck load of old wood and bricks to the dump and still a bit left for the trash.  Here is a pic of the "clean barn" 
 

 
The next step is that I need to get an electrician out to run some wires out to the barn.  I am thinking that I would like something like and 60 or 80 amp box out there.  I need them some work inside the house to.  I have fuse box that controls two bedrooms and most of the basement off of one 20 amp breaker, so I will need him to fix that as well.   Until that is done, I won't be doing much else back there.

You might consider putting in FRP (fiber reinforced plastic) panels on the wall. They are easily washable and will prevent the drywall from absorbing the moisture. I think you could run a very thin drywall under these just to have something to glue it to.

http://www.homedepot.com/...-8-ft-white-53655.html

+1 on the FRP, if you have the cash.  It makes life easy to clean it up.

I used it in a fishroom I had in the old house.  I liked but didn't like the cost $27 per sheet vs.  $8 for green board.  I will see how the budget looks
 

Go with the more expensive materials on the walls.  Part of what makes DFS look so amazing is that they didn't skimp on that type of stuff

I would think that a 60 amp 240V sub panel should be enough.  I run the entire clownhouse on a 30 amp circuit right now.  I am not sure of your heating requirements which could have an impact on it but I run a wall heater to heat the room and (1) 250 watt heater in each system for supplemental heating.

The 60 amp will probably do the trick.  I already have one electrical line out there so I should be more than covered.

I had the electrician out today to take a look at getting electric out to the barn.  He said it was all very doable.  It also helps that I had a Number 8 wire that was already run to the barn that he can use for the box. 
 
The interesting note is that we have to do some work in the old fish room to solve some electrical issues in the house and hedoesn't want to do it until the fish are gone.  Once the electrical is in, I will have to get a move on so that I can get the fish out of the fish room so we can finish the stuff my wife wants done.  

#8 is not large enough for a 60 amp circuit but you can take 50 amps out there.  I would still think that you will probably have enough power with that also.
 

That's what he said.  He was going to do 50.  I already have another 20amps currently out there.  So with 70, I should be good.  He is also going to put them on GFCI breakers.  

Would it be better to have the 20A NOT on a GFCI? Just thinking about mainly heat/ac and other critical non submerged uses.