Tropical Fish Forums

[katienaha]

So I have come accross a good deal on a 130 gallon tank.

It comes with a metal stand that the contact with the floor is about 2.5"x2.5" on 4 legs.

I live in a tailer/mobile home, and my current 55 has given the floor a slight bow, as we hastily set it up.

This tank full is going to be at least a thousand pounds, what can we do to the stand to modify it to spread the weight a little better??
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Let the current take you where you may not always want to go.

[Caton]

Have it not rested on pressure points but have it evenly distriubutied would be one way, getting underneath the house and supporting it would be another. I had my room once when you could drop a marble and it would roll to the corner of the room, now since we fixed it I could probablly have a 150g tank and it be fine.
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[katienaha]

well, the guy has accepted my offer of 250 dollars for tank and stand. I will buy it, but we will work on trying to get the floor bit figured out.

we have a friend who used to sell trailer/mobile homes, and he is also a carpenter/cabinetmaker, so he should have some knowledge.

The tank stand I believe is steel, so we could weld more legs onto it I think.

Oh, and the tank is dis-assembled. Which is OK, because we may not get it set up until late this winter at best. easier to store when it is flat...
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Let the current take you where you may not always want to go.

[rales12]

If your 55 makes it bow, 130 is definitely going to. I'd reinforce the floor if possible, and build/buy a stand that is going to spread the weight out evenly across the floor, instead of on little spindly legs. I believe there's ways you can further spread the weight of the stand, like putting down a piece of cement board where the tank is going to go, so that it spreads the weight and lowers the stress on one area of the floor. Similar to how you would put crate in a tank that was going to be holding a heavy amount of piled rocks (I.e. - an African tank). You could always hide the cement board with a rug, of course.

And there is, of course, the basics... like putting it next to a weight bearing wall, which should be able to take the weight. If you're in a double wide... I would imagine that that is going to be along the middle of the house. If not a double wide, I can only guess the best place would be somewhere on an outer wall. Even so, I'd still probably try the cement board (or something similar, I'm sure there's other materials you could use to spread the weight), just to be safe.

Bigger tanks are suh-weeeeet... but they sure are heavy!! I figure my 75 gallon is about 800lbs when its all said and done! (And my husband actually asked me if we had to empty it to move it to the new stand... /facepalm)
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- Rachel

[katienaha]

Well.. no wall in any trailer is weight-bearing. so where it is won't help.
the belly-bag of our trailer is 98% intact, so my boyfriend does NOT want to go underneath and mess around down there. Everything will have to be done from above...

I think it is bowing the laminate, which is OK really, it's just laminate... but I don't really know what is under that.
But then I think, OK, I weigh so much, my boyfriend weighs so much, so does our bed.. and the floor there is fine..

and then I consider our kitchen cupboards: full of plates, pots, pans, the wood itself... it all weighs so much.. and all that floor is fine... I really hope this is gonna work!
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Let the current take you where you may not always want to go.

[rales12]

I guess I've never crawled around under our trailer to see where/if there is any support beneath it to hold up the middle of our house. I just figured there would be, because we have a double wide, and I can't see how it would hold itself up if there wasn't something under there doing it for us!

Better safe than sorry.... I'd find a good, solid material (cementboard, or some good plywood or something) and put that where you want the tank, cover it with a nice rug, and set the tank up on it. In these cases, its better to do a bit of overkill than to wake up the middle of the night because your tank went crashing through the floor! (I keep having this nightmare where my current not-perfectly-level tank breaks on the one side and I have a swimming pool in the living room in the morning. >_< Its because of these dreams that I gave up on my husband and started on the new stand by myself!)
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- Rachel

[katienaha]

well I'm glad I'm not the only one in a trailer with this worry. I think my best bet is to talk to my boyfriend's coworker who sold these things back in the day, and is a carpenter. but I agree in distribution of weight. if a leg doesn't land on a floor joist, at least distributing the weight will prevent it from crashing through...
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Let the current take you where you may not always want to go.

[Cinder]

Personally, there is no way I'd have that large of a tank on any stand that had legs. I think you'd be asking for future trouble. You need to put it on a wood or metal stand that has a full frame with all four sides sitting on the floor. That totally distributes the weight as evenly as possible.

Having lived in a mobile home I'd be really cautious about having that size tank until you have talked with an Engineer or highly knowledgeable contractor.

Good luck ... I do LOVE my big tank and hope you get to enjoy yours too.
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135 gln. freshwater tank
29 gln. freshwater tank

[ant1]

to spread the weight I'd rest the stand on a paving slab for each leg spreading the weight out evenly.