New tank not level?

[JFinlay]

Hello! Let me preface this by saying I’m a very paranoid person, I’ve always had bad luck and if something bad can happen it will.

my 40G breeder that I just setup isn’t level. The tank is from Aqueon and the stand is Imagitarium, I knew this stand was going to give me trouble while I put it together, just not a good design. I didn’t help this situation by putting my tank on carpet in my basement. I thought not putting the feet on the stand would help it sink in and all level out. Idk now. Pics will be below

Don’t even know how I’d go about fixing all this. I can shim the bottom for the water level, but all the uneven points where the tank meets the stand? It is fully touching from front to back on both sides of the stand in the middle but not the edges. Like most info regarding these saltwater tanks, it seems like some people think this is fine, others think it’s an accident waiting to happen. I used a piece of paper to show where it isn’t touching

Half of me just wants to fill it the rest of the way up with water, level will be out of sight and out of mind behind the rim.

The other half wants to strip everything down and either give up (before I’ve even begun lol) or start over.
I very clearly rushed this process

 

[JPM San Diego]

My thougts:
Now is the time to make corrections.
Consider getting a few strong friends to help.
Drain out the water into buckets and move the tank temporarily.
Adjust the legs and or shim the stand so that it is level.
Consider using a leveling pad between the stand and the aquarium to distribute the weight given the uneven stand.
Then fill'er back up and sleep better...

 

[PotatoPig]

The feet should be adjustable - you’ll want them on it. Or shim the corners.

Chances are this is a floor levelness issue - the stand isn’t rigid enough to hold one end up like that - it’d just deflect until it had contact. You need to mitigate the floor levelness, or lack of.

You need to make sure the corners are supported. The tank spans from one end to the other - contact between the tank and sides isn’t essential, even if you did have contact the glass is so stiff virtually no load would go through the steel anyway - but you 100% need full contact between the corners and the stand.

 

[jpark457]

In a tank that small it doesn’t really matter if it’s 100% level or not, you just don’t have that much pushing in the seals regardless. It should be level sure but this is probably fine

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hello! Let me preface this by saying I’m a very paranoid person, I’ve always had bad luck and if something bad can happen it will.

my 40G breeder that I just setup isn’t level. The tank is from Aqueon and the stand is Imagitarium, I knew this stand was going to give me trouble while I put it together, just not a good design. I didn’t help this situation by putting my tank on carpet in my basement. I thought not putting the feet on the stand would help it sink in and all level out. Idk now. Pics will be below

Don’t even know how I’d go about fixing all this. I can shim the bottom for the water level, but all the uneven points where the tank meets the stand? It is fully touching from front to back on both sides of the stand in the middle but not the edges. Like most info regarding these saltwater tanks, it seems like some people think this is fine, others think it’s an accident waiting to happen. I used a piece of paper to show where it isn’t touching

Half of me just wants to fill it the rest of the way up with water, level will be out of sight and out of mind behind the rim.

The other half wants to strip everything down and either give up (before I’ve even begun lol) or start over.
I very clearly rushed this process

Adding a couple of shims tapping in with a hammer will resolve this

 

[JFinlay]

My thougts:
Now is the time to make corrections.
Consider getting a few strong friends to help.
Drain out the water into buckets and move the tank temporarily.
Adjust the legs and or shim the stand so that it is level.
Consider using a leveling pad between the stand and the aquarium to distribute the weight given the uneven stand.
Then fill'er back up and sleep better...

Do you think installing the legs or shimming would give me contact at the edges of the tank? That seems to be the biggest issues and that's what confuses me is how I'm going to get them to actually touch. From what I've read Aqueon doesn't recommend a pad underneath the tank. I could be wrong though

 

[JFinlay]

The feet should be adjustable - you’ll want them on it. Or shim the corners.

Chances are this is a floor levelness issue - the stand isn’t rigid enough to hold one end up like that - it’d just deflect until it had contact. You need to mitigate the floor levelness, or lack of.

You need to make sure the corners are supported. The tank spans from one end to the other - contact between the tank and sides isn’t essential, even if you did have contact the glass is so stiff virtually no load would go through the steel anyway - but you 100% need full contact between the corners and the stand.

So the corners aren't supported, but the front to back on both sides except for where the paper is, is touching. Do you think adding the feet/shims will give me contact at the edges as well?

 

[PotatoPig]

Don’t worry about the front and back (long) sides. These don’t need support and even if you get contact it’s impossible for the tank to put load into the long side of the frame anyway. There’s folks who set these tanks up to be very clearly free spanning from one end to the other - it looks very precarious but functionally it’s the same as any stand without a solid wall around the edge.

You need the corners to be supported though. The long sides are basically a beam that spans from one end to the other. You want to take this load out at the corner where the long side ends. If the support is in the middle of the short side the load from the long side vertical panes then has to go through the joint and around the corner to the support at the short side, loading the glass joints in ways they weren’t designed for.

 

[JFinlay]

Don’t worry about the front and back (long) sides. These don’t need support and even if you get contact it’s impossible for the tank to put load into the long side of the frame anyway. There’s folks who set these tanks up to be very clearly free spanning from one end to the other - it looks very precarious but functionally it’s the same as any stand without a solid wall around the edge.

You need the corners to be supported though. The long sides are basically a beam that spans from one end to the other. You want to take this load out at the corner where the long side ends. If the support is in the middle of the short side the load from the long side vertical panes then has to go through the joint and around the corner to the support at the short side, loading the glass joints in ways they weren’t designed for.

Oh ok when I say front to back I'm talking the width or shorter side. Idk if that makes a difference

 

[vtecintegra]

40g and plastic trim tank, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

 

[JFinlay]

40g and plastic trim tank, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

These are the mixed responses I’m talking about

 

[CoastalTownLayabout]

My thougts:
Now is the time to make corrections.
Consider getting a few strong friends to help.
Drain out the water into buckets and move the tank temporarily.
Adjust the legs and or shim the stand so that it is level.
Consider using a leveling pad between the stand and the aquarium to distribute the weight given the uneven stand.
Then fill'er back up and sleep better...

Spot on mate.

 

[shcrimps]

the beginning is the best time to start, i had the same issue couple years ago (also the floor itself wasn’t level) it should be fine and settle in, however if you do correct this you can get a cheap yoga mat or something of the sort (dollar store probably has them) and cut to fit
it’ll fill in any voids between the tank / stand and give a nice buffer zone

 

[JFinlay]

Yea I’m getting some friends over in a couple days, going to drain all except like 10 gallons, take the rocks out, and take it off the stand and figure this out. Going to put the feet on it I guess? Just seems sketchy on carpet. And readjust the long cross bars. I think the high spots on those are preventing the corners from touching

Thank you all very much for the input.