Reef tank in mechanical room?

I am looking at doing a built in tank in my basement. The back side and sump would be in my mechanical room which has my electric panel and water heater.


Does anyone have any experience with whether this is going to cause corrosion to the panel and appliance?

 

I suppose that could be an issue. Had not thought of that actually. Todd sails may have experience with this.

 

It very well could. Do you have an exhaust fan? Perhaps you could seal the panel a bit from moisture as well.

 

I wouldn't without an exhaust fan. Saltwater is very corrosive obviously, and confining a sump in the room would make the air itself corrosive. That would not mix with a service panel IMO.

 

I was thinking of putting an exhaust fan from the storage room into the garage to keep air moving.

 

And changing the door to a Louvered door

 

I have my sump in my laundry/ electrical/ water heater room. It has been running for more than a year and there is no corrosion on anything from the tank. I will say that i have 2 doublehung windows in the room that are frequently open during the nice part of the year.

 

Don't see how it would be an issue. Only water evaporates (hence the reason we top off with freshwater), so IMHO, the corrosive property of SW would only apply to anything that falls into your tank or sump.

 

Depending on your local humidity and the evaporation from your setup, you could get into a problem of mold and rust. To be safe, I would use a fan and put it on a timer depending of the humidity. Or you can get a "humidistat" to turn it off and on. You want the humidity to always be below 50% if possible. Target is 30%. I had problems with humidity in Nashville when I lived there, but now I am in eastern Oregon and have no humidity problem.

 

Good ideas Windy.

This hasn't been my experience. I have a curtain on one side of my tank to address light spill from the tank for those on the couch. The curtain rod is half rust now and needs to be replaced.