Leveling a stand....how to ???? (1 Viewer)

[Cathman]

Ok, picking up a tank this weekend to officially get back in lol. I have tile in the room it will be going in and i am sure it is not perfectly level. How do you guys go about doing this?

I was thinking maybe getting some of the pink foam insulation board stuff.....styrofoam type that is. Would this work if i laid in on the floor and then set the stand and tank on top of it? Or, are there better ideas? I am not sure i want to use a couple of coins because i think that would put stress elsewhere from being such a small footprint.

Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[KrAs]

The stand itself is what needs to be leveled, not the tank. I would get a level and some shims and then level the stand. If the foundation (in this case the stand) is solid then you will not have problems with your tank later.

 

[Cathman]

Sorry if i did not make that clear in the first post....indeed it is the stand i am wanting to make sure is level. Keep em coming.

 

[decimal]

here what i would do... set the stand in the location where it will be. take a reading from the level. shim the stand to level it with wooden shims. once its level, see where the greates gaps are and if its less than .075 then i would not worry too much about it as that should fall into the ok range of the level. if its .125 or more, measure the gaps from the floor and use a shim as wide as the tank (you can measure each corner and use a table saw to cut a thin shim from a 2x4 lengthwise to go from one corner of the tank to the other) if it is really bad (.500 or more) you can tear out the tiles where the tank will sit and float the floor with a leveling filler and replace the tiles. hope that helps.

 

[Andy]

DO NOT USE WOODEN SHIMS.

I did this before. When you spill water, and you will, the shims will soften & break apart.

.02

 

[Brad]

Another reason not to use wood shims is the weight of the tank would likely crush the shims.

 

[crvz]

I've made this comment before, and someone is welcome to disagree with me, but having the stand perfectly level is not that important; your tank support needs to only be completely flat. Sometimes it's just easiest to shim and level the stand in order to ensure that everything is flat, but as long as there are no gaps between the tank (as you can reasonably assume that the tank glass is flat) and it's support, having the setup lean a degree or two in any direction is irrelevant.

You want to provide uniform available support for the tank, but the few psi difference in pressure with a slight lean is pretty negligible.

 

[Scott]

look at these, this is the type of feet I use when I build a stand and you can get them at any local hardware store. Or even at Woodcraft if you live near the city.

 

[Metzzen]

What about if your stand has casters on the bottom? Im building a stand and i plan on putting 4 heavy duty casters on the bottom. My 75 gallon is on wheels and i love it, makes getting to teh eheim tubes REALLY easy. i can wheel the entire tank around the house if i really wanted to, and when we moved the tank across town we simply took 70% of the water out and put it in a moving van, rolled it back out an filled it back up.

 

[deepsea43]

my best guesse would be try to level it out with ply wood and nail it on once you have it level

 

[AquaNerd]

is the stand something you made, or something you bought? if you bought it somewhere maybe the store or manufacturer can replace it.

 

[Cathman]

I guess I did not make myself clear....the tank and stand are fine....it is the tiles on my floor that are a little uneven....as they put too much mastic down when they were doing it and i guess they did not use a level on the last few tiles they laid.....which is where the tank will be sitting.

That is the reason i asked about the foam insulation stuff....figured it would conform to the shape of the floor and help with the leveling effect.

 

[Guest]

I guess I did not make myself clear....the tank and stand are fine....it is the tiles on my floor that are a little uneven....as they put too much mastic down when they were doing it and i guess they did not use a level on the last few tiles they laid.....which is where the tank will be sitting.

That is the reason i asked about the foam insulation stuff....figured it would conform to the shape of the floor and help with the leveling effect.

My stand has a solid sheet of plywood on the bottom and I have tile floors. We put a big sheet of the (blue) foam board under it. It also keeps the bottom of the stand from sitting on little water spills. I didn't want the blue foam board to show so I painted it the same brown as the color of the stained stand. That might work for you if you have a solid stand bottom.
Cheryl

 

[Scott]

What about if your stand has casters on the bottom? Im building a stand and i plan on putting 4 heavy duty casters on the bottom. My 75 gallon is on wheels and i love it, makes getting to teh eheim tubes REALLY easy. i can wheel the entire tank around the house if i really wanted to, and when we moved the tank across town we simply took 70% of the water out and put it in a moving van, rolled it back out an filled it back up.

use the feet I showed in the other post and put retractable HD casters on it.