How to distribute tank weight over floor tiles?

[Deb]

We have just moved to a new house, with all new construction. The room where I plan to keep my fish tanks has a tiled floor, for easy clean-up of any spilled water. The tiles are ordinary ceramic, 12" x 12" (30 cm x 30 cm). The tiles are laid over a wooden subfloor, supported by appropriate joists, built over a crawl space.

All of my aquarium stands are made of metal, and the legs sit directly on the tiles. My concern is that the direct contact of the metal legs with the tiles will cause the tiles to crack, once the aquariums are filled with water. I'm using hard rubber furniture caster cups under the legs of the small stands, but do not know what to place under the legs of the larger stands, which are 4 feet (1.22 m) long and 6 feet (1.83 m) long.

If any of you have had this problem and solved it, please let me know what you did!

[bekateen]

There are a couple of other posts about this subject in the Tank Talk forums:

https://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/vie ... 9&p=301112

https://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/vie ... 2&p=122919

Not specifically helpful, but might give you ideas.

[Bas Pels]

I got a tiled livingroom - ceramic tiles, just like you have, and my tank is standing on concrete poles (17). These are standing on plywood, and I got more plywood on top of them.

While the tiles I walk over are starting to deterioate (apparently the previous owner used cheep tiles, like he did everywhere els in the hous) but the ones under the tank seem to be as good as they used to be - the day I bought the house, in 2003

[Kd67]

Easiest way to go would be to have some pt plywood cut to the size of the tanks and place the stands on it. If your looking for something that would look a bit better you could get some plates welded to the bottom of the stand legs and then set those on some rubber. Either way should spread the weight out enough to protect the tile in theory.

[Deb]

Thank you all for your replies.

@Bas Pels, can you please explain this a little more:

I got a tiled livingroom - ceramic tiles, just like you have, and my tank is standing on concrete poles (17). These are standing on plywood, and I got more plywood on top of them.

What are the "concrete poles" ? Are they concrete building blocks?

[Bas Pels]

An old picture, of the tanks construction, might explain this best:

[Deb]

Yes, the picture explains it very well. Thanks!

[TwoTankAmin]

I have metal stands and a more serious tile problem. This house is built on a concrete slab with no basement. Our floors are12 inch square wood tiles (about 3/8 inch thick) backed with about a 1/4 inch of styrofoam. Putting the L shaped metal legs on such tiles would be disasterous.

My solution was to buy a piece of oak wood 3.5 inches wide and 3/4 inch thick. I cut off pieces about 3 - 4 inches long and place a piece under each leg. This has worked fine for tanks up to 75 gallons. That is my largest tank on a metal stand so I cannot say how well this method might work for bigger/heavier tanks.

It is important if you want to do this that you only use a hard wood. If you try it with a softer wood like pine, the wood will compress or even split.

I am not an engineer, but I know the blocks I use reduce the pounds per square inch by spreading it out. There is a limit to how much one can spread it, so I doubt a full sheet of plywood under the entire stand would greatly improve things in this respect. I would try two pieces of oak of two different sizes and stack them so the bottom one was about twice as big as the one on top. This would likely be all one needs to further reduce the PPI on the floor.

[Bas Pels]

I agree 17 smaller pieces of plywood could have done the job just as nicely. But in my case - why bother? The plywood is 6 mm, that is 1/4th of an inch. I believe I paid 40 euros (today that is 44 US $) for the wood in a 2800 euros project. I could have saved perhaps 20 euros

Still ,there are plenty situyations where it would be a good idea to bother

[TwoTankAmin]

I would be worried about the plywood. This stuff has a lot of edge to edge support, but it is made up of layers of softer woods. I am not sure how much weight from those metal legs plywood can withstand. Hopefully this will not be an issue. If the legs leave an impression of any depth in the wood, then the tank may not be level?

[Deb]

Thanks for the discussion!

For my 6 foot (1.83 m) stand, I'm thinking of using 2x4's under each pair of legs. Each piece of wood would measure ~2"x4"x20" (or longer), and would be oriented from front to back. This stand does not have the L-shape legs, but bent, hairpin-shape legs, curved side down.

Do you think the 2x4's will work?