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So I am thinking about putting a 75 gallon tank in the garage. The garage is more like a den or man cave. The walls are insulated with one single window. No A/C or heat. I live in northwest Florida where it gets hot in the summer upwards of 100 degrees and usually around 30-40 as a low in the winter with a few below freezing nights. I have had a 55 gallon in my garage a long time ago and don't remember having any problems. It was just a basic set up with one heater and filter. I want to keep tropical fish in it, such as tiger barbs, red tail shark, etc.. Is there anything that I should worry about? Thanks

HI,
I guess I might mention the obvious... The temperature extremes that you mention. You will need some method of cooling the tank in the summer and heating the tank in the winter months. One heater will not be enough. Figure you will want two 375 watt heaters so that they can react to the rapid fall of temperatures once the sun sets. And, you will probably want a chiller for the summer

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

I'm with Frank on this, your main concern will be temperature.
A 75 will offer better protection against fluctuations than say a 10, but it will still struggle. I'd consider keeping natives personally, as they'd be more suited to the variations. You could slowly!!! let the tank cool by a degree or two a week in winter, then slowly!!! raise it again towards spring.
If you're not wanting natives, or there aren't any in the area I'd stick with hardier tropicals (I've found some of the barbs good at that).
You'd be good most of the year as far as temperature, I'm mainly concerned about the extremes.

Only other thought to consider, is that if it's used as a garage (or shed) at all, any exhaust fumes from paint, fuel, oil, herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, ect will end up in the water supply and that's not going to be good.

^_^

A good method to cool the tank down would be to buy a mini frigde and drill 2 holes in the side of it, coil up a good amount of flexible hose inside of it, and have either a canister filter or powerhead pumping the water through it. Obviously feed the hose in through one hole and out the other to be returned to the tank. Remember that the more hose you have coiled up inside the fridge, the longer the water is going to stay in the fridge. It would take some tinkering between the amount of hose in the fridge and the temperature the fridge is set to in order to get it just right, but once you have it you're set. I understand that a mini fridge isn't necessarily cheap, between 100 and 150 dollars for a small one, but that's all you would need. Compared to an actual aquarium cooler though, its a steal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5s8Cu59-NM This is a very good instructional video for what I just described in that last post.