Have to move tank and stand 5"

So i bought a skimmer off one of the members here. Its a coral life super skimmer 65. UNfortunately my current setup is too close to the wall and I need to move my tank and stand a few more inches out. Here is the process I was thinking...Its a 40 gallon acrylic with probably 50 pounds of rock and a 1" sand bed.

1. Setup skimmer, make sure it works on a 5 gallon bucket.
2. Buy premixed water so I dont have to mix any.
3. Drain the tank about to 1/3rd of the way.
4. See if me and a friend can pull the stand with the tank on top across the carpet a few inches.
5. Refill the tank with NEW premixed saltwater
6. Startup the skimmer.


What you guys think?

 

5" is a long way when you are talking about moving a 450lb tank. You shouldn't have a problem doing it that way. Just do it very slowly. Just slowly drag it, don't try to lift it though

 

May want to drain the tank more than 1/3 if you can. Even 1/3 of the water out you still have around 260 lbs of water, plus the weight of the tank, rocks, sand and stand.

If you can take out a little more than half you could get the total weight down to around 250 lbs and shouldn't be too much of a problem with a friend helping.

I would just watch for the carpet bunching up in front of the tank, dragging 300 lbs across carpet isn't all that easy.

Perhaps try a 2x4 behind the tank as a lever, placing it as low as possible so you don't tip the tank over, and pry it out from the wall. Being careful not to damage the wall of course. Another piece of wood can go against the wall to protect it. Hope that makes sense.

 

The biggest consideration (by far) is the strength of the stand. Key points:

- Carpet is going to grab the stand more than, say, a wooden or tile floor would.

Hence...

- You will need to apply more force to slide the tank.

- The force you will apply will be in shear (e.g. side to side) which is NOT what a stand is designed to take (it is designed for compression).

You can minimize the risk of stand failure by:

- As others have mentioned, remove as much water as possible.

- Push/pull from the bottom to have the shortest possible moment-arm to reduce the shear force on the stand. The higher you push/pull, the more stress you put on the stand in a manner it was not designed to take.

With all that said, given that it's only 40 gallons, I'm guessing that the stand would be able to take it. You should be able to "walk" it out from the wall a couple inches at a time.

One last word of caution would be to have someone spotting the tank from the front to make sure that the water sloshing doesn't cause it to tip forward. That would be bad.

 

Why does the tank need to be moved? Can't you hang it on the side? Add a sump? Sliding wood digging in to carpet is a disaster waiting to happen.

 

excellent post.

I agree, really. Very risky.

 

I used a long metal pry bar from Lowes to move a completely full 125 gallon tank a few inches away from the wall so that I too could add a protien skimmer... so it definitely can be done. I used a block of wood as a fulcrom and the pry bar as a lever underneath the bottom of a tank. I only lifted the bottom of the stand a cm or so off of the carpet so that I could pivot the pry bar on the block of wood and swing out the end of the stand and tank. I "walked" out each side of the tank an inch or so at a time until I could fit the protien skimmer behind it. A spotter to keep an eye on things is a great idea.

 

I can tell you right now, no matter what way i move this stand it will not break. It is built like a tank with 3 vertical 2x4s in each supporting corner.

 

Cant hang the skimmer on the side. Its an acrylic tank and has the sort of "lip" that goes around the whole top of the tank except for a small portion near the center back where you can hang filters.

 

Nice. I will definately be having help with this. my concern is , I can empty the tank more than a third of the way, but I dont want to have to move all my corals around and stuff. Would they be fine out of water for a little while. Say I was able to empty the tank a lot, then move the stand quickly, then fill it back up quick?