Keeping tanks in apartments

[makeme1098]

Anyone keeping 2 or more tanks in the apartments?
If so, what is your tank size?

I am keeping 20 long now, but I would like to have another tank. Maybe 30 gallon cube.

anyone??

 

[trc]

Not yet but I will be soon as I've got to get a quarantine tank up and running. I live on a second floor apartment with wood floor joists and have a 75 gal tank with about 60 lbs of live rock. I put the tank on an inner wall, which I hoped was load bearing. As my tank is only 4 foot long I put a 6 foot board under it to spread the load over as many floor joists as possible.

My tank is also not drilled and the only water outside of the tank is in a Remora Pro Skimmer. Up until last week, I had not had any water outside of the tank until my skimmer went crazy, I ended up finding a dead snail in the skimmer box.

I'm going to set up a 20 gallon tank to use as my quarantine but will do so in another room on an exterior wall.

 

[loohunter]

i had a 100 with a 55 sump on the third floor

 

[spongebob lover]

i had a 100 with a 55 sump on the third floor

OMG!!!:lol:.
i used to live in an apartmen, my tank is a 37 gals....very simple set up BUT what a pain in the butt is to move freaking tanks ...specially when there's kids around...hehe lucky enough i had a friend neighbour helpin to move the live stock ...he helped move it from our second floor to the third one .
If you think you got very kind friends that will help you move ...then go for it ...but if you're gonna go big....just have a couple hundreds saved ...just in case you flood the apartment downstairs .... listen to the advice from someone who not once or two but 3 times flood someones apartment :lol:.

 

[makeme1098]

flooding..... i am very worried about that. I live on the 4th floor so I am always worried when I have to out of town. If I get another tank, I need to get a flood proof skimmer. My pieace of doo Prizm acts up time to time on my 20 gal tank. Out of no where, it will start pulling clean water in to the collection cup and water spills behind the tank.

 

[billaweed]

Not yet but I will be soon as I've got to get a quarantine tank up and running. I live on a second floor apartment with wood floor joists and have a 75 gal tank with about 60 lbs of live rock. I put the tank on an inner wall, which I hoped was load bearing. As my tank is only 4 foot long I put a 6 foot board under it to spread the load over as many floor joists as possible.

My tank is also not drilled and the only water outside of the tank is in a Remora Pro Skimmer. Up until last week, I had not had any water outside of the tank until my skimmer went crazy, I ended up finding a dead snail in the skimmer box.

I'm going to set up a 20 gallon tank to use as my quarantine but will do so in another room on an exterior wall.

I'd say with the way homes and apartments are built these days with the material we have, putting your tank against any wall will be ok. The I-beams they use now are pretty load bearing in themselves. I would say that using an outer wall would be the best because you typically would have a rim joist, hangers, and I-beams on top of another (typically 2x6) wall for support.

 

[Damsel13]

OMG!!!:lol:.
i used to live in an apartmen, my tank is a 37 gals....very simple set up BUT what a pain in the butt is to move freaking tanks ...specially when there's kids around...hehe lucky enough i had a friend neighbour helpin to move the live stock ...he helped move it from our second floor to the third one .
If you think you got very kind friends that will help you move ...then go for it ...but if you're gonna go big....just have a couple hundreds saved ...just in case you flood the apartment downstairs .... listen to the advice from someone who not once or two but 3 times flood someones apartment :lol:.

OMGosh!!!!!!! Only did that once with a ten gal. and it was fresh water! :shock:

 

[makeme1098]

how did your neighbour act after the flooding?

 

[spongebob lover]

how did your neighbour act after the flooding?

the first two times they thought that someone from the third floor broke something :lol: but when they found out it was our fault because of the fish tank, they sent us papers saying that we needed to get rid of the fish tank and if not, they wanted us to leave bla bla bla ... we just told them that we were gonna pay for the damage but that we weren't getting rid of the tank or leaving... they took pictures, the manager took pictures but that's it :lol: , at the end we ended up paying 500 for the two times i flooded downstairs .
the third time it was when we first were moving into the third floor (different apartment people)..the neighbour didn't complain plus it wasn't to bad :lol: ...but definettly if you're gonna be messing around with water, make sure you got plenty of towels and some money saved up ...just in case

 

[makeme1098]

how did you flood your apartment? was it your skimmer? overflow? tank leak?

 

[thekingfish]

UWScotch had this rigid plastic lining thing under his tank with a lip on it so that it would catch some of the water that might accidentally flood from the tank. I don't think it would hold all of the tank water but its a pretty good precaution. If I lived in an upstairs apartment, I would definitely put one of those linings under the tank.

I have a float switch that will cut off the return pump if the water level falls below a certain level in the sump. That way, if the overflow gets clogged for some reason, my return pump doesn't keep pushing water to the tank above and flood the floor. It could work the same for your skimmer so that if it starts flooding, the switch will kill your skimmer pump.

 

[makeme1098]

yea, i've seen that at uwscotch's place before. i might swing by homedepot today and explore. maybe I can come up with somrthing similar to uwscotch's idea.

 

[Snowboarda42]

I have a 40B on the 2nd floor of mine. It always freaks me out going on 24hour shifts and going back over to seattle for 4 days in a row. I'm going to Seattle for 6 days so I'm having my neighbor fill the drip top off and check things out...My skimmer should be here tommorrow, but I won't set it up until I get back from that 6 day...

 

[Willy]

I have a 75 on the second floor. Ya I get a lil worried when I leave for a week at a time, but so far knock on wood all has been fine the few times ive done it

 

[aquariumdebacle]

ya got nuthin' on me! I had a 120 gallon saltwater tank with a sump, a 40 gallon planted freshwater tank with a ten gallon nano under it, and a 15 gallon saltwaeter tank in a room that I was renting that was only 12 x 15 ft.! Plus I had my queenzize bed, computer gear and all my books! Beat that!

 

[stinkyfishdude]

I'm Building a 400 gallon for my apartment

 

[makeme1098]

400 gal? that's crazy. I hope you live on the first floor. How are you going to put the tank in side of the apartment without apt management finding out?

 

[Kraut!]

Have a good insurance policy. I have to have a million in coverage for water and fire that I may cause with electrical stuff. I live on a second floor apartment and I have had an aquarium stand failure where my 75 glass collapsed my stand crushing a 55 glass sump. Thank God the people below me just moved out and the maint. manger (who has a 125 and a 150) said "it was a nasty storm with bad drainage on the property." Also had a skimmer go nuts and dump 5 gallons outside the waste bucket... annnnnd one of my cats triped me while i was carrying 2 five gallon buckets of freshly mixed SW. At least the cat got what he deserved.
And one last thing... you may want to have a few people on hand just in case of a disaster. neghbor above me had a fire a few months ago while she was away on holiday. Fire sprinklers popped and drenced the whole place and filling my apartment with water. now having to move out while they fixed things isn't so bad, but finding people to help you move a 90 aquarium with livestock is another, especially on short notice

So yeah.... Cheers!

 

[spongebob lover]

well the first time i forgot to close my RO filter dood:lol: ... so it kept leaking for 2 days ( they had to replace half of the kitchen sealing from downstairs :lol: ) , second time i was doing a big water change (i'm a wimp and I'm proud :lol and i spilled water all over the tank which somehow managed to get downstairs (apartments are built with very cheap material or at least where i was living before :lol: ), third time when we were in a different apartment complex i did the same darn thing dood :lol: i spilled tons of water and some got into the neighbours .
you can always buy some buckets for your neighbour and if he/she asks why just say.... it's just in case you ever need it :lol:

finding people to help you move a 90 aquarium with livestock is another

i totally agree .
if you got best friends... you'll know if they truthly are, after they help you move that tank :lol: .
I think that is insane people have huge tanks because if they ever decide to move, it's gonna be a pain in the butt to move such a big tanks... specially if they're not in the first floor

 

[stinkyfishdude]

I live on a bottom floor wich is concrete, i have lived here since they built the place, I have buildt saltwater aquariums for my income for the last eight years, I thought about building something lager but i dont know if i will have the time to take care of it!