With fish keeping being one of those hobbies that can quickly draw you in resulting in you expanding both the number of fish you keep as well as the number of tanks in your setup, we often see people asking about keeping an aquarium in their garage.
Depending on your location and the ambient temperature ranges, this can be surprisingly easy to do and even if you do live in a particularly hot or cold area, you can usually still get a cheap aquarium accessory to help you keep your aquariums in your garage without issue.
A large number of people within the fish keeping hobby keep their aquariums in their garage but most people only focus on the potential problems of their garage being too cold.
Due to modern insulation, many people actually end up having problems with their garage being too hot for the fish that they keep so it is important to factor in all possibilities.
With the correct prior planning and a potential small increase to your budget to make sure that you have all of the tank accessories required to correctly monitor and adjust temperature as required, the majority of people should be able to keep an aquarium in their garage without issue.
This can serve as the perfect solution for anyone who is looking to expand their fish keeping operation to increase the number of tanks they keep or the size of their tanks when space is short in their home.
Can You Keep An Aquarium In The Garage?
The majority of people within the fish keeping hobby should easily be able to keep an aquarium in their garage with minimal issues and risks to their fish.
In addition to the potential temperature difference in the garage, you should also factor in the stability of the platform you keep your tank on as well as the potential of toxic contaminants in the air of the garage that may allow particles to land in your aquarium water.
This is another thing that is commonly overlooked as many people have a wide range of chemicals in their garage and will use the space to clean various things releasing chemicals into the air in their garage.
Even an aquarium that has a lid on it can have issues with these chemicals being able to reach the water within the tank and potentially start to cause problems with your water parameters.
Dust can also surprisingly end up causing a wide range of problems in an aquarium too and with the majority of people having a dusty garage, this also has to be factored in.
Not only can a large amount of dust landing on your aquarium water cause problems for your fish but it can also end up clogging essential aquarium accessories and preventing them from working too but this is usually easy to avoid if you give your garage a good thorough clean prior to adding your aquarium and then remove the dust build up in the garage at least twice per month.
Will An Aquarium In The Garage Have Temperature Problems?
An unregulated aquarium housed in a garage can have a range of problems with its water temperature but some cheap equipment is usually able to change this and maintain a steady water temperature as needed.
Depending on your location, you may not actually need to regulate the temperature in your aquarium though but other people will, especially in particularly warm or cold areas.
As we touched on earlier in the article, most people focus on the potential issues with the cold when keeping their aquarium in the garage of their home but this is usually not as important as potential problems with heat.
If you do live in a cold area, it is very common for modern homes to have excellent insulation so the cold does not end up being as much of a potential issue as most people initially think.
Problems with heat are far more common as they can warp your aquarium’s water temperature out of parameters for what your fish require but heat can also cause a surprising amount of water to evaporate quickly.
In addition to this, heat in a garage is not only a problem during the summer months either but can potentially be a problem year-round depending on your particular setup so you have to factor this in too.
How Can I Keep My Fish Tank Warm In The Garage During Winter?
A standard aquarium heater setup is usually enough to keep an aquarium kept in a garage warm enough to prevent issues during the winter months.
There is usually no need to splash out on an expensive aquarium heater too as in most cases, the entry level models should be able to maintain a steady temperature even if you are in a cold area.
This is due to aquarium heaters being far more common in the hobby due to the popularity of tropical fish helping to keep the costs of the heaters down due to the demand being there to provide consistent sales.
Depending on the temperature ranges in your local area, you may actually be able to get away with a simple heat mat setup too but cheap heat mats can have their problems so going with an actual aquarium heater is usually the best option.
We would highly recommend that you keep a close eye on your aquarium in your garage during the colder months of the year though to monitor your equipment and ensure that the heater is doing its job.
Although the cheap aquarium heaters are usually great bits of kit to use, the actual temperature monitoring units that control the heaters can be inaccurate so double check the temperatures with a digital thermometer if possible.
How Can I Keep My Fish Tank Cool In The Garage During Summer?
Keeping an aquarium kept in the garage cool in the summer months is often more difficult and more expensive than keeping it warm during the winter months.
An aquarium chilling unit should be able to get the job done but these can be pricey depending on the temperature range that you have to regulate.
Unlike the aquarium heaters that we covered above where the cheaper models can often be enough to get the job done, the cheap aquarium chillers tend not to be as good.
This can end up increasing the budget of your fish keeping hobby during the summer months but there are alternatives available for many people.
One thing that we have seen people take advantage of is to bring their aquarium into their home during the warmer months so the air conditioning units in their home are able to help regulate the water temperature of their tanks.
This can work in some areas and prevent you from having to pick up an aquarium chiller but this is not a realistic option for many people, especially in the warmer areas.
Is It Better To Keep your Aquarium In Your Home Or In The Garage?
With correct planning, most people can keep an aquarium inside their home or garage with minimal issues.
Many people will be able to use the two interchangeably but some areas that are particularly hot or cold will have to pick up some aquarium accessories to help regulate the temperature of their aquarium tanks.
If you do have a garage that is not being used for anything else then it can serve as an excellent tank room that can house a large number of aquariums with minimal inconvenience to the rest of your home.
If you are planning on using your garage as a dedicated tank room then you can often make modifications to the garage as a whole to help regulate the temperature and reduce the potential problems that we covered above due to dust and chemicals too helping to keep your fish as safe as possible.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over keeping aquarium in your garage to an end and we hope that we have been able to help as many of our readers as possible. There are a large number of people within the fish keeping hobby who keep their aquariums in their garages without issues and we have seen some photographs on social media of people who have managed to turn their garage into a great tank room with a huge number of tanks in there so the additional space offered by a garage can help you expand your hobby as much as you wish.
