How to protect floors from Large tanks?

[DogueDeBordeaux]

My tank will either be on hardwood or ceramic floors. I thought about using a rug on top of foam before placing stand. This would also help out any leveling issues. I have seen rugs used before in pics.

How did you protect from the weight and spills of a reef tank?

 

[Mike Ordner]

I don't know about spills, but if you are trying to spread out your weight do not use leveling feet on your stand. You want the bottom support of the stand to lay flat on the floor so weight is evenly distributed. What size tank and what does your stand look like? Is the tank going on wood or ceramic tile?

 

[James77]

My tank will either be on hardwood or ceramic floors. I thought about using a rug on top of foam before placing stand. This would also help out any leveling issues. I have seen rugs used before in pics.

How did you protect from the weight and spills of a reef tank?

I would not use foam or rugs underneatht the stand, it may give you stability problems. You could glue a very thin strip of solid cork or something else a bit "soft" maybe only a 1/16" of an inch or so. As for the spills, you could put a rub or something absorbet around the perimeter of it.

 

[aldiaz33]

I don't know that having a large tank setup on a nice hardwood floor for X years and expecting the hardwood to look ok afterwards is realistic. The inevitable spills are going to cause a little damage.

I would set it up on the ceramic tile if that's an option; much better odds of the tile holding up over time, versus hardwood.

The person I bought my setup from put closed cell neoprene (microfoam) on the bottom of the stand to protect his floors and to absorb imperfections. I would think this would do well to absorb any high spots, where the tile is not completely level.

Here's a pic: the Gray painted wood directly on the floor is a shim and you can see the foam on the bottom of the stand. My floors are concrete, so I'm not too worried about them, but I figured the foam couldn't hurt, so I left it on there.

 

[krjackso]

I have got this same question, and I have tile. Any thoughts or experience on these...?

http://www.lowes.com/pd_92958-255-4...&currentURL=/pl__0__s?Ntt=felt+pad&facetInfo=

or sporadically placed....

http://www.lowes.com/pd_54071-255-4...&currentURL=/pl__0__s?Ntt=felt+pad&facetInfo=

 

[aldiaz33]

I have got this same question, and I have tile. Any thoughts or experience on these...?

http://www.lowes.com/pd_92958-255-4...&currentURL=/pl__0__s?Ntt=felt+pad&facetInfo=

or sporadically placed....

http://www.lowes.com/pd_54071-255-4...&currentURL=/pl__0__s?Ntt=felt+pad&facetInfo=

Felt furniture pads would probably work. If your tiles aren't all that uneven, that would probably work well. But if your tiles are a bit more uneven, I would go with closed cell foam (neoprene or micro foam). This stuff has pretty good compression strength. I have roughly 4 tons resting on mine, and they are only compressed about 2/3. I think you can see in the pic that I posted, my shim is not perfect. The foam is compressed a little at the high spots. Not sure if this would prevent a steel stand from cracking a high spot on a tile, but it would help a little bit to diffuse a point load. The foam seems to absorb the imperfections of my shims really well.

If you end up using the small circular felt pads, make sure that you have some placed directly under your vertical supports.

 

[aldiaz33]

Duplicate post. Sorry.

 

[DogueDeBordeaux]

Where do you buy closed cell foam (neoprene or micro foam)? Do you have a site with part#?
I will set the tank on ceramic tile after reading these posts. I was really not thinking as much about the water as I was about the weight making impressions/dents in the wood floor.

 

[James77]

Not sure as far as part nubers, but Mcmaster-Carr has every single thinkg on the planet, at least it seems that

Mcmaster.com

 

[aldiaz33]

I didn't buy the foam under my stand (it came with it), so I'm not 100% sure that this is it, but it looks a lot like this stuff: http://www.foamforyou.com/minicell_foam.htm

Looks like you can order a samples...good luck!

 

[padova335i]

hard wood floors are treated.. so why would you damage anything? the salt water does not penetrate it unless u spell like 50 gallons! just wipe it up.. never had an issue

 

[Chrisrush]

I will be putting a steel stand on light colored tile and in the past, the steel has rusted in spots where SW crept below the stand. I hope to avoid this on this tank. I'll keep and eye out for the neoprene foam. I don't like the thought of using wood since it may warp and crack if it gets wet and unleveling the stand.

 

[prop-frags]

We always use shower pan liner in the bottom of our stand to catch any spills or leaks. In our application, it's applied as a liner on top of the bottom section of the stand underneath the tank, like so:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/terryl93/5581226338/" title="nt 963 by terryl93, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5094/5581226338_d33f588f47_b.jpg" width="1024" height="680" alt="nt 963"></a>

But you could also use this same material under your stand to protect the floor from scratches, rust stains, etc. You just need to be careful to prevent salt water or salt creep from getting between that liner and your floor.

 

[Chrisrush]

Thanks. I'm thinking about adding something like that. I'm going to coat the bottom of the stand with some heavy duty rustoleum and hopefully that will help seal out any rust along with the shower pan liner.