Moving tank

[capdippe]

Has anyone ever moved an established tank from one room to another where there should be better support from the floor? My girlfriend and I are buying a home, and plan to be out of the place we're in by Feb. I've bent and sagged the floor where the tank sits now cause I was paralleling one floor joists (what was I thinking?). I was afraid that moving the whole tank to another room (perpendicular to the joists), and then doing it again a few months down the road would be to hard on the animals. Any thoughts? I have a contractor coming out to look at the place here within the hour. My other thought was to break down the tank and just wait till we moved altogether, I would need to find a home for my critters in that case. This has been the most stressful part of owning this tank, surprisingly it hasn't been the cost LOL!

 

[TJL]

Hey, if this contractor is not familiar with aquaruims and load structure or you're not comfortable with him at all shoot a pm to Duane (trido) past pres. of PSAS as he and his brother are contractors very familiar with this scenario. I'd think with adequate access to floor joists below they could jack-up and scab (double-up) additional joists to fully support your tank without moving it.

Just my .02, Todd

 

[Burke]

I did move my tank to another room about 6-8 months ago. I put all the corals in tubs and buckets and drained just enough water that I could move it and leave the fish in the tank. It did stress the tank and I did have a couple SPS corals that didn't make it. I think it might have been that they got too cold durring the move, I did't have enough heaters to heat everything (but I rotated around heaters) and I couldn't keep all the water I removed, so I was delayed waiting for my RODI unit to produce new water. So it took me several hours to complete. It was a pain, but I had to do it.

I think you should wait and see what the contractor says.

 

[Burke]

I agree with Todd.

I would think you could at least temporarily support it for 5-6 months. Since your moving anyway. Then you only have to stress your tank once.

 

[capdippe]

Thanks guys! I'll PM Trido.

 

[capdippe]

The contractor didn't seem to think that there was much of an issue. He did notice that the floor around the tank was depressed about 1/8th of an inch and was leaning a little back towards the wall. He thought that the few 4X4's that I had placed under the tank would prevent a failure of the floor, and didn't think it was worth doing work. I'll see if I can get a second opinion cause I don't want to loose anymore sleep over it.

 

[capdippe]

PM sent thanks.

 

[WA98296]

If you have access to the floor joists you can double up the bent joists to easily fix the problem. Jack, glue screws and a new joists is all you need.