[AquaticLife] Styrofoam Under A Tank?
When I lived on the second floor of an old farmhouse, and had ready access to hardwood flooring, I laid down the flooring perpendicular to the extant flooring (may have been hardwood, but looked like pine) against what I hoped was a load bearing wall (the rooms were larger than the age of the house would have dictated, but this one still had horsehair plaster) to make a base slightly longer and wider than the tanks I would set up there, and leveled that using cedar shingles, also easy to come by and inexpensive at the time. Checking the level as I went along, I set up and filled the tanks, and found I needed to do a bit more leveling as I went along. I did not get it perfectly level, but it was level enough for several years of use, until I moved elsewhere.
Remember the cedar shingles. They are ready made for shimming with the thickness at one end being very thin, and thickening toward the other end. They can be easily split to fit, and cutting is easy. The only real problem is that they have a tendency to compress over time, and you may need to re-level the tank as some point in the future. While it is not real easy to do so with an established tank, a massive water change can help lessen the weight when you need to do this.
\Steve//
> —–Original Message—– > From: AquaticLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:AquaticLife@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of > Lenny V. aka GoldLenny > Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2008 1:02 PM > To: AquaticLife@yahoogroups.com > Subject: RE: [AquaticLife] Styrofoam Under A Tank? > > \Steve// already preemptively answered this but foam will not level a tank. > Any compression of the foam will be done across the entire piece of foam > equally so if the stand is not level before the foam, it won’t be > afterwards. > > You are better off using shims under the bottom of the stand to level it > first to compensate for any floor sag and then as you fill the tank, you may > have to shim even more. Putting a larger tank (55G+) on a load bearing wall > will help prevent sagging floors in raised homes but shims may still be > needed. > > Believe me, some of these 200+ year old homes in N’Awlins are built like > fortresses (they’ve withstood many, many hurricanes) but the floors still > sag like crazy in many of them. You can feel them bounce when you walk on > them. I’ve almost always had to use shims on the front of my stands even > when putting them parallel with a load bearing wall, to keep them from > leaning forward. Once, for one of my customers, I even put braces on the > back/top of the stand and screwed them into wall studs to make sure the > thing wasn’t going to lean forward over time since they had to put the tank > in a hallway on an inside non-load bearing wall (most of your external walls > will have some load bearing capacity). I’ve never gotten one perfect yet > but within a 1/8″ margin. Then you just have to fill up the water line > above the top tank brace so you don’t see the leaning water line. LOL > > Lenny Vasbinder > Fish Blog - http://GoldLenny.blogspot.com > (Links to any articles referenced in above reply are listed on the right > side, alphabetically under Labels and also under Archives by Year, Month) > > > —–Original Message—– > From: AquaticLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:AquaticLife@yahoogroups.com] On > Behalf Of pam andress > Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2008 11:37 AM > To: aquaticlife@yahoogroups.com > Subject: RE: [AquaticLife] Styrofoam Under A Tank? > > > I know some people that put it under the tank to level it if the floor is > not level. When I move, I’m hoping to remember this and when I reset up my > tanks I want to do it. I figure it will also help with heat loss in the > winter. >
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