# best way to put a 200 gal on an uneven floor?



## infin (Oct 2, 2003)

Need some suggestions on putting a 200 gallon tank 96x24x20 on an uneven floor, the place im at has original oak hardwood floors that are about 100 years old, over the years the foundation has sagged, and the floor is max 1/4 inch off at the greatest location, the stand i have is flat bottom and tilts around right now (tank is not filled yet) What is the safest way to even out the stand? put on a piece of carpet? shims? Thanks in Advance.


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## mpb (Jun 6, 2004)

Are you sure that the floor can withstand the weight?

A 200 g tank weights 1000 pounds.


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## ninoboy (Jan 26, 2004)

Is this gonna be placed on the bottom floor or upstair? Don't try to place it on the second floor if the floor isn't flat no more.


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## Rex Grigg (Dec 10, 2002)

mpb said:


> Are you sure that the floor can withstand the weight?
> 
> A 200 g tank weights 1000 pounds.



Actually a 200 gallon tank is going to be a lot closer to 2000 lbs once you add substrate, stand, water and all the rest.

If the floors are uneven and the house is 100 years old the first thing I would do is spend the money to get a structural engineer in there to inspect the house to see if the floor can take the load. Then the next thing I would do is sell the tank and get one small enough to sit level on the floor. Setting up ANY tank so that it's not even can and most likely will cause problems.

Setting up a tank this long and with that much weight will cause problems. If nothing else you will get a bow in the tank and it will fail. And 200 gallons of water is a LOT of water to have on a floor.


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## Mori (Jul 23, 2003)

I can't comment on whether the tank will end up in the basement or not, but to level it out, you could get one (or two) of those very dense chunks of foam insulation and (possibly) some plywood...but if after filling--and you have to fill it to see if it's adequate--it still isn't level, you'll have to empty it and try something else. The flat bottom stand is nice for distributing the weight over the foam and it won't compress very much. The PSI is distributed evenly across the area...but if the joists won't hold it they won't hold it. 

This COULD work. But it might not. I used this system (minus the plywood) to level a 160 gallon tank over a very rough stone floor (that I installed myself--very uneven!), but my tank isn't glass so I wasn't all that concerned...but it did level out. 

Go to the basement and see if the joists have sagged or just the floor between the joists (or the entire house). I much prefer the idea of getting a structural engineer in there to look at it. Leveling it is the easy bit.


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## infin (Oct 2, 2003)

under the house where it sagged has foundation running all the way across the wall behind where the tank is and joists every 16" going to it, i dont see why the floor wouldnt take the laod. The stand is flat bottom and the tank is acrylic, yea 2k lbs is alot of weight on the floor, but its going to be spread out over an 8x2 ft area. Ill probably give the dense foam idea a try.


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## louisxyz (Apr 8, 2004)

I guess the best way would be to build your own stand and to ajust it to the floor, the only think is to make sure you measure exactly where the tank will be on the floor to take a precise mesurement. Another problem is that this stand will only work on this spot. 
Another solution easier than build a complete stand wuold be to build a wooden base maybe 2 inches high ajust to be level with the floor, the current stand would than be install on this base.


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## glass-gardens.com (Apr 14, 2004)

The stands I build for larger tanks all have at least 6 elevator bolts on the bottom, which are placed directly under vertical load bearing points. That way the stand can be adjusted for floors like you describe. As long as the tank is placed near a load bearing wall and running at 90 degrees to the joists, I've never had a problem and the only real problems I've seen in placing them farther out is picking up movement from people walking across the floor which can start quite a wave in your tank.

If the stand you're going to use can be modified, just add elevator bolts to the vertical supports and you'll have no problems with the uneven floor. My house has old heartwood pine floors, it's about as uneven as you can get and I've had no problems.


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## fish_fan (Feb 17, 2004)

96" x 24" = 2304"sq carrying 2000 lbs = .8680555 lbs per sq inch, which doesn't seem unreasonable...

take that same 2000 lbs and put it on 6 elevator bolts with 3" pads:
1.5" x 1.5" x 3.14 = 7.065"sq x 6 = 42.39"sq carrying 2000 lbs = 47.1809 lbs per sq inch, which concerns me a little... but hey it's your house...

my only real concern is that the house may settle more with the added load... and that could lead to unpleasant consequences...

good luck... roud: 

BTW the insulation foam block solution is going to give me nightmares...


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## AW0L (Jan 15, 2004)

with a fish tank on old wood floors. i woudnt try it. A tank that size is very heavy as has been noted, but on a uneven floor the weight would be unevenly distributed, even if you level it theres still a chance of it getting unleveld due to settling after a period of time. and on wood floors thats a big chance. especially with the amount of humidity that can occure underneath the tank for a period of use of changing water. might damage the wooden floors even more. you would probably need a professional to look at it and see if it can take such weight and under the conditions of humidity and if the foundation has any cracks


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## Urkevitz (Jan 12, 2004)

I was worried about putting a 55 gallon in my apartment. The only place I would have the guts to put a 200 gallon is in the cellar.


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## Saxman (Feb 21, 2004)

I used some wood shims under mine - I only had to go less than 1/4 inch due to some carpeting. I put small pieces of hardwood under every area that should be touching the ground - in effect adding to the bottom of my stand. I used a level to make everything perfectly level before adding anything to the tank. It wasn't hard....it just took patience. My tank is a 75 and it has been fine.

Old houses do settle a little and become uneven. It does not necessarilly mean they are structurally unsound --- but be careful.


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## Wasserpest (Jun 12, 2003)

> best way to put a 200 gal on an uneven floor?


There's only one answer... don't! roud:


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## Mori (Jul 23, 2003)

I suppose there are other important questions, like "own or rent?". I'm not gonna do the math, and I'm ignoring the unevenness of the floor here, but if the bottom of the stand is a flat surface and not on legs, the weight is evenly distributed across the joists. It's not that much at any given spot--probably slightly more than a 55 gallon tank. It's less than a fat guy sitting on your couch. The difference of course is that the fat guy isn't on your couch for years on end (but the 55 gallon tank would be). Old houses are often tougher than new--old-growth lumber in good condition is better than stuff available today.

But you do want to be sure that the weight IS actually spread between the joists, and not skipping over any...and you may want to get a good angle and write down the exact measurements of certain key floor-wall and wall-wall and ceiling-wall angles and watch them for change. I'd expect some shift after filling, but hopefully you'd get it stabilized. The floor may get flat again .

If you're paranoid, you can always get some of those construction jacks and prop up the joists in the basement.


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## bigpow (May 24, 2004)

infin, wanna trade it with my 55 gallon?


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## Buck (Oct 13, 2002)

*Hard wedge* the tank stand , DO NOT use foam ,carpet, or any other material that can compress or change (even swell) with time Infin ! I too have a house over 150 years old and have lost one tank due to my stupidity.
I have a 75 gallon tank set up with hardwood wedges (very thin and numerous) due to the uneven hardwood floors and have no problems now. 

If you do anything other then hardwood to hardwood you will have a problem. I dont care how dense a foam or carpet you put under that tank , with time it will change and stress the seams on your tank that is "designed" to sit perfectly flat and even. We are allready assuming that the tank is built perfectly... ya know... great seams, perfect panel cuts , in other words, hopefully its not a "Friday Tank" ! 
You are talking of a lot of weight and a large investment... be sure that it is right. :wink: 

OK... its time for Buck's Lessons Learned _(a.k.a. whining)_ ... have I ever told you guys of the time my wife woke me up at 3:00am and said "Do you hear water running ? " 

Oh yeh sorry ... I just mentioned this a few weeks ago... LOL

Hard Wedge the stand till its perfect :wink:


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## you (Jan 29, 2004)

Another thing to check is to walk heavily near the proposed tank area and see if you can get the floor to move. If the floor goes up and down a lot, then find another spot or spend some quality time stiffening that area of floor. It's not good for the tank if it goes out from level everytime someone walks past.


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## putty (Nov 19, 2003)

The stand for my 90g is a 2x4 on edge frame with 3/8 plywood lining the whole frame. The plywood is glued and screwed to the 2x4 frame.

Now, the floor was not level, and I used cedar wedges to level it against the carpet. I leveled, filled and checked level again, until I got the water in it to be perfectly parallel to the edges of the tank, ensuring that the tank is level.

2 months later, the tank is still level, and I highly doubt that the stand will warp from the wedges. I am running some dense foam between the tank and the stand as well.


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## infin (Oct 2, 2003)

i was thinking of getting a 1/4" piece of floor board and cutting it the same size of my stand bottom and placing plastic on the floor and spread a bunch of floor leveling cement down them putting the floor board on top then leveling that. Has anyone tried that? only tough part about this is i dont know if ill be able to press down on the board to get it level. Or just level out the board by itself with shims and then put the tank on top of that. The stand i have is professionaly made by a aquarium stand company, and has a flat bottom, The place im at is mine so if i damage something i have to fix it myself  , I guess the only way to get this thing up safely is take my time and get everything leveled and supported.


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## Mori (Jul 23, 2003)

The problem with leveling it BEFORE you fill it is that there will be significant settling of the floor after you fill it. 


Of course the problem with leveling AFTER you fill it is that it's impossible.


I'm not super keen on shims because the spot on the floor with the shims is going to get a disproportionately large amount of force on it. At least place the shims directly over joists. (Do put something down to protect the floorboards themselves--you don't want nasty scratches or a permanent indentation of anything like a SHIM.) 


If the floor sags a bit when someone walks near where the tank will be--don't worry. That won't happen once you have the tank there because it'll already be depressed. Your whole floor will ake on a new shape. Is it possible to get a good line level, go into the basement, and see how unlevel it actually IS from joist to joist? If it's just floorboards being uneven you won't have a problem because they'll get nice and flat really quick. You probably won't be that lucky though...


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## Laith (Jul 7, 2004)

"Your whole floor will ake on a new shape..." :eek5: :eek5: :eek5: 

How can you sleep at night? :icon_bigg 

Laith


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## Mori (Jul 23, 2003)

hehehe you get used to it!

When my cat walks across my 85 year-old wooden floors, they sink a little bit. He's not very sneaky. Now, if I laid a mile-long tank across my floorboards, they'd all get nice and flat and be like they were originally installed. When the cat walked by, there would be no squeaks!

200 gallons, 50 gallons. It's about the same impact on the floor. With either tank you oughta check for new cracks along the walls, especially in the corners....


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## Laith (Jul 7, 2004)

Or sit very quietly and listen for new cracks...

If you hear something start to go CRAAAAA....

Get the mops and buckets out. Then explain to the significant other that, unknown to anybody, this must be a light earthquake prone area... :tongue:

On a more serious note, I agree that it seems more scary than it is as long as the tank is positioned correctly and on top of a supported part of the floor...

Not being a structural engineer, I would personally employ the services of one just to double check. :icon_bigg


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## bigpow (May 24, 2004)

Guys... I don't think mops and buckets will do any good when the 200 gallon of water pour out ... LOL

Think of redesigning the house... like new carpet & new flooring...


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## Mori (Jul 23, 2003)

my basement has storm drains. I bet his does too.


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## you (Jan 29, 2004)

Mori said:


> ...
> If the floor sags a bit when someone walks near where the tank will be--don't worry. That won't happen once you have the tank there because it'll already be depressed. Your whole floor will ake on a new shape. Is it possible to get a good line level, go into the basement, and see how unlevel it actually IS from joist to joist? If it's just floorboards being uneven you won't have a problem because they'll get nice and flat really quick. You probably won't be that lucky though...


If the problem is just floorboards you are correct. If the problem is in the joists (like at my house) you can still get some movement from people walking past. I was more worried that the joists would carry the weight in the long term so I fixed them.


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## Mori (Jul 23, 2003)

Good point. If his joists sag I think the tank should go in the basement. Squishy joists are not _really_ ideal...

I recommend labyrinth fish for this tank as they tend to last a little longer when their tank empties due to some catastrophe....


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