How do you keep fish in the garage during winter?

do you use a space heater or individual tank heaters?

right now im using individual heaters gonna do space heaters

that gets expense compared to keeping them in the house tho correct?

yes sir but if done properly with individual heater and 1 air pump youe elec bill wont be as bad as using hob and what not.... i put the bare minimum that i could for wattage in my tanks if i was using a 300 i put a 200 or 150 or a 100 i also enclosed part of the garage to keep somewhat of a temp in the room so the heaters didnt kick on as much

Both.

If you need help with the set up let me know. In a few years I will be doing the same thing so I need the experiance.

im willing to fly out and give you a hand HRT we will get er set up in no time

I dont really understand why anyone would want to keep tanks in their garage?
I see so many spetacular reef tanks and they are almost always in a ratty dank basement where they can't readily be seen, mine are right it plain site I have 3 in the living room and are seen as soon as you come in the house then people are surprised to see the 180 when the walk into the Great room. I guess I could see it if you were making a living selling fish but a display is just that to be displayed.
JMHO :)

A big heated tank IS a source of warmth

cwhip wrote:

I dont really understand why anyone would want to keep tanks in their garage?
I see so many spetacular reef tanks and they are almost always in a ratty dank basement where they can't readily be seen, mine are right it plain site I have 3 in the living room and are seen as soon as you come in the house then people are surprised to see the 180 when the walk into the Great room. I guess I could see it if you were making a living selling fish but a display is just that to be displayed.
JMHO :)

their breeding the fish in the garage.
the tanks arent ment to be seen as display tanks.........
theyre basically empty tanks with flowerpots or so nothin fancy.

alkomist wrote:

cwhip wrote:

I dont really understand why anyone would want to keep tanks in their garage?
I see so many spetacular reef tanks and they are almost always in a ratty dank basement where they can't readily be seen, mine are right it plain site I have 3 in the living room and are seen as soon as you come in the house then people are surprised to see the 180 when the walk into the Great room. I guess I could see it if you were making a living selling fish but a display is just that to be displayed.
JMHO :)

their breeding the fish in the garage.
the tanks arent ment to be seen as display tanks.........
theyre basically empty tanks with flowerpots or so nothin fancy.

thats why I mentioned hobby breeding and making a lil extra $$
still there are so many reefers that hide tanks that would blow your mind.
if my tanks looked like that you would trip over it coming in my house:)

insulating the tanks will help alot too.

I keep most of my fish in the garage. I use a space heater, but still have to use tank heaters in some of the bottom tanks.

My garage has central air in it and stays at the same temp as the house.

When I first started in the hobby I had a couple of big monster tanks, then my hobby went more to breeding! My garage set up is ok, nothing super fancy but I get tons of traffic stopping by just to talk fish when I have the garage doors open! For me it made more sense to have it in the garage rather than spread all through out the house, not to mention I could add tanks to the garage and the wife would never know!!!

As far as the set-up... before you start get some of that thin insulation (doesn't take the thick stuff). I staple gunned it up in a few minutes. Then a couple of space heaters. I kept my garage in Texas at about 80 degrees when it was 30 outside. In Virginia I kept it at 70 when it was 10 degrees outside.... Not perfect but I didn't lose any fish! You must make sure to insulate the garage doors, I bought the heavy duty "super insulated ones" they were expensive but you can't feel any air coming through in a blizzard! I use a central air blower with sponge filters. Keep the blower up high in the garage as heat rises and then it will blow warmer air into the tanks and that helps keep the tanks a little warmer! On any tank 55 gallon or larger I also ran aqua clears on as well. I love using the garage as a "fishroom/hang out" IT's my little man cave... I put a recliner and stereo system out there, who needs a house!!!


Here's a couple pictures of my texas set-up...



All the "black stands" were from the last FOTAS that the HCCC hosted back a few years ago. I bought the racks from the club and modified them for what I needed.



Notice the blue wall in the back ground, its a thin insulation from Lowes, pretty cheap like $35 for a bundle that did over 1/2 the garage. On the back wall I had 8- 55 gallon tanks, I had 3-125 gallon tanks and 1- 240 gallon tank. The most tanks were 30-20 longs which are my favorite breeding tanks!



This shows (one of the side walls) a rack of 18- 10 gallon fry tanks and in the middle another rack of 6- 10 gallon tanks... I had at one time over 100 tanks going and full of fish/fry etc...

hmmmm keeping tanks in the garage.......let's see, Abrams, Shermans, Pershings, and the like are gonna take a huge garage, and it might not be necessary to heat them. rofl

nice. im also worried about the texas heat. how to do correct for that?

Holey Rock of Texas wrote:

nice. im also worried about the texas heat. how to do correct for that?

Open tanks, lots of surface agitation and insulated garage door.

yeah the insulated garage door is a must. i do nto really want to leave my house dorr open like you jojo lol.