Powering Shed for fish house.

[Leroy01]

So my old man is planning on setting up a fish shed which will hold 2-3 fish tanks. The power drawn from the equipment which will be running in here are 2x 500w heaters, 10,000 ltr return pumps which are 80 Watts and a few lights which are 90 watts at max, Will most probably have 3-4 to start with.

So i know the idea would be to install an armored cable straight from the fuse board but running the cable through the house would be a nightmare so im planning on either running 2.5mm single core cables or an armored cable from a fused spur of a ring main but wondering what you guys think and if you think i should be ok ?

Would need to run 2-3 small led's for the shed itself and the outside but that's about it.

 

[westward10]

This really doesn't sound like a DIY project and whilst the forum is happy to help in some aspects of DIY I would recommend you seek the services of an electrician.

 

[Dave OCD]

And anyone who begins a post or sentence with So should be banned immediately.

 

[littlespark]

And anyone who begins a post or sentence with So should be banned immediately.

So…. Should I be banned too?


Not helpful, and Sunday morning banter, but do large fish tanks come under the same section as “rooms containing a bath or shower”.

Large container fill of water…. It’s a bath… a bath for fish.



Coming off the socket ring, it would have to be a fused spur, limiting the load to 13A… The addition to the circuit would need rcd protection, which may be already in place.

At the shed end, you’ll probably want some sort of distribution board to separate circuits… and is this a shed, or more a log cabin?
You mentioned lights, but will there be other general use sockets or a heater perhaps?

All adds to the expected load.

If you get an electrician in to look at the job, you might find running from the mains db isn’t as hard as you think.

We are known as the magicians of the building trade.

 

[timhoward]

I’ve just done a supply to a garden office at the end of a 50m garden, crossing a shared access path with gates both sides, through a freshly installed kitchen, through 2 walls and into a cellar to the origin at the front of the house. The whole job took 2 days including changing the main house consumer unit and fitting out the office with sockets and lights.

Seriously, I’d get a sparks to come and look. We know lots of tricks to make the seemingly impossible possible.
A serious drawback of running from a spur is any faults outside will turn off the house too.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

A serious drawback of running from a spur is any faults outside will turn off the house too.

And conversely, any faults in the house will the aquarium supplies which is not good for the fish. I would have thought it better to try and run the submarine without RCD protection and divide it locally with RCBOs to limit the impact of any fault to one tank or system. ISTR when my uncle had tropical fish, he had duplicate pumps and UPSs to ride out any one failure.

 

[ipf]

And conversely, any faults in the house will the aquarium supplies which is not good for the fish. I would have thought it better to try and run the submarine without RCD protection and divide it locally with RCBOs to limit the impact of any fault to one tank or system. ISTR when my uncle had tropical fish, he had duplicate pumps and UPSs to ride out any one failure.

Should that 'submarine' be Yellow?

 

[Lucien Nunes]

Oops, autocorrect strikes again
I was using the other computer which likes to impose its own ideas of the language on what I write.
Submarine = distribution circuit, aka submain.
Yellow submarines are 110V and should be fed from an isolating transformer to BS3535

 

[ipf]

Oops, autocorrect strikes again
I was using the other computer which likes to impose its own ideas of the language on what I write.
Submarine = distribution circuit, aka submain.

I see your 'smileys' are working Lucien, mine haven't for over a week now....just a blank sheet comes up on 'load'....anyone else?

 

[littlespark]

Smilies haven’t worked for weeks and weeks, but you ca use built in ones on iPhone or use keyboard character combinations… ie, : followed by a ) gives

 

[ipf]

Smilies haven’t worked for weeks and weeks, but you ca use built in ones on iPhone or use keyboard character combinations… ie, : followed by a ) gives

On laptop.
Oh!
or I see what you mean?

 

[littlespark]

or I see what you mean?

Gotcha!

 

[ipf]

Gotcha!

wink?

 

[pc1966]

While you could put in a "super extension lead" using some 2.5mm SWA and suitable boxes at each end to gland the cable to and (at least sending end) feed out some flex to a 13A plug, it is really not a great solution as folks above have already said. You are better to get this done professionally.

You can save a bit of money if you are willing to dig the trench / put in duct / etc for some of the physical route as most sparks will be happy to see that job done by someone else, but getting a proper spec down and working through your options with them is your best plan.

While you are doing this you might want to put in some outdoor Ethernet cable for any web cameras, etc, you might fancy to watch things remotely. Also if the fish are valuable you might want to consider Lucian's point about a big-ish UPS for some backup power, or at least some for of power-fail alarm or tank temperature alarm to alert folks to problems before they become fatal to your finned friends.

 

[littlespark]

wink?

Use ; instead of :

I think maybe no more discussion on this particular thread about why smilies don’t work.
Need to stick to the subject of the thread…. Being and before it gets mod culled.