# Will a wrought irohn 4 foot stand support 90 gallons?



## Castro235 (Mar 4, 2010)

Hi everyone, not really a DIY question, but I couldn't find a section for "Accessory help" or anything like it, and this is a mild diy project, so I figured why not try here first.

The scenario is that I had a 40 gallon long tank on a metal stand(I think it is wrought iron) and a 55 gallon on a wooden stand. I noticed that the wooden stand seems like it may or may not be pushing down on the edge supports(It looks like it was a really awful design, I bought the whole shebang second hand) and I decided that I don't want to take any risks of 55 gallons of water going through my wood floors.

The 55 gallon is now set up on the metal stand, and I now have a 40 gallon tank with no use, and no place to set it up.

The stand is designed with the front legs cornered out, so that a tank can easily be slid into place on the bottom, I previously had a 20 gallon long with about 10 gallons of water set up as a sump tank alongside the 40 gallon, but now I'm considering using the 40 gallon as a sump tank underneath the 55 gallon tank, especially now that the tanks inhabitants have been put together in the 55, I would not mind having it well overfiltered.

My question is, before assuming and having a problem, is it likely that the stand would have been designed with the ability to easily slide an equal footprinted tank underneath for another reason, or is it most likely that the metal stands are strong enough to hold two tanks with that foorprint without problems. 

The 40 gallon would probably have around 25-30 gallons of water in it when set up, and having that coupled with the 55 or less from the above tank, I don't know if it would be too much weight for the stand to handle. 


Sorry for the rambling, I'm usually pretty bad when it comes to describing a situation and asking a question, but in the end I'm just asking if a typical four foot metal stand, made of what looks like about 1/8" all around, would be strong enough to support both a 55 gallon tank on top, and a 40 gallon tank(with 30ish gallons of watter) on the bottom.


Thanks for any help.


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## brownmane (Jan 7, 2011)

I would not even try to guess what the stand could hold. Like you say, you can't assume. However, please keep in mind that every gallon of water weighs 10 pounds. You also need to take into consideration how much weight you are putting onto your floor in that area. It sounds to me like you originally had two tanks with their weight supported separately over your floor. You need to think about the fact that these two tanks' weight will now be on top of the same floor space. So the weight would be about the same, but the weight is put onto a smaller area, thereby putting more pressure per square inch onto the floor space. I think that it would also be important to know if the floor would support the weight.


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## zof (Apr 23, 2010)

Weight of one gallon of water is about 8.3 pounds, not such a big deal but when talking about 90 gallons of water it can make a big difference in estimating if something will work or not.


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## Castro235 (Mar 4, 2010)

brownmane said:


> I would not even try to guess what the stand could hold. Like you say, you can't assume. However, please keep in mind that every gallon of water weighs 10 pounds. You also need to take into consideration how much weight you are putting onto your floor in that area. It sounds to me like you originally had two tanks with their weight supported separately over your floor. You need to think about the fact that these two tanks' weight will now be on top of the same floor space. So the weight would be about the same, but the weight is put onto a smaller area, thereby putting more pressure per square inch onto the floor space. I think that it would also be important to know if the floor would support the weight.


I'm honestly not worried about the weight on the floor, although upwards of 800 pounds is alot of weight, for a house floor it really isn't that much, I also have the tank set up along the support beam going underneath the floor just in case, but I honestly wouldn't worry even if it were elsewhere. 

My concern is whether the stand itself should be for some reason unable to withstand the weight. I typically see metal stands with legs put on in a manner that doesn't allow for a tank with the same footprint to be put in, at least not without some struggle I would imagine, but this stand is actually weird in having the front legs situation so that a tank of the same size could slide in, I could only see this being useful if you planned on indeed setting up a sump tank underneath, and figured I would ask those with experience for any advice on whether it seemed unlikely that it would work. 

I really find it hard to believe that the stand which is quite sturdy and made of relatively thick metal couldn't support the weight of 90 gallons or less, but I try to be cautious and ask those who may have done so already.


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## SinCrisis (Aug 7, 2008)

Actually, depending on how the tank is placed, the effect on the floor can be huge, i personally have a cracked beam under my tank that had to be reinforced and my tank was only 46g. However, as your question is about stands, that is the one that I will address. Wrought iron stands like these: Penn Plax Aquarium Tank Stand 55 Gallon at PETCO, Are designed to hold additional weight for other purposes. However, without seeing you stand, it would be hard to tell you what it is designed to do. The best thing to do is to look up your stand and see if you can find descriptors for it. There is no solid answer as to if your stand will be able to hold both tanks or not because the manufacturer and design for each stand is different.


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## Castro235 (Mar 4, 2010)

SinCrisis said:


> Actually, depending on how the tank is placed, the effect on the floor can be huge, i personally have a cracked beam under my tank that had to be reinforced and my tank was only 46g. However, as your question is about stands, that is the one that I will address. Wrought iron stands like these: Penn Plax Aquarium Tank Stand 55 Gallon at PETCO, Are designed to hold additional weight for other purposes. However, without seeing you stand, it would be hard to tell you what it is designed to do. The best thing to do is to look up your stand and see if you can find descriptors for it. There is no solid answer as to if your stand will be able to hold both tanks or not because the manufacturer and design for each stand is different.


The unfortunate part is that being a second hand item I have no way of knowing the kind of stand, there are no markings or anything to tell me what it is, but it is very thick compared to some stands I've seen, and the underneath is in a weird way such as I can only see it being opened to fit a second tank, had the bottom tier been solid instead of just edges I would assume it was just to put various things on, but either way I decided to go ahead and take my chances, the bottom tank only has about 15 gallons or less in it plus some driftwood, floss, lava rocks, etc, with how some of the 55 gallon wood stands I've seen have been built, I would honesty find it amazing if this somehow wasn't four times or more stronger than one of those.

(also, yes I know that stands generally do have a same-footprint edging underneath for the stand itself to have support, but generally all four legs are curved in in a way that you cannot put anything with that size underneath, where as the two front legs on this are cornered out in a way that allows for a tank to be easily put on that section)

Either way I will post if it ever does cause a problem, and if anyone wants to ask in some time if it's still going well feel free to message me, I'm obviously not going to post every week saying it's still up =P


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## GraphicGr8s (Feb 22, 2011)

I've got my 2 55's on the iron stands. If they are the welded stands I'd have no problem putting a 55 and a 40 on it. My 55's are on 2 separate iron stands. The one has a 55 on top and a 45 on the bottom. Putting a 55 on the bottom makes it near impossible to work on the lower tank at all. The other stand has a 55 and a 20 long that's a turtle tank so it's a partial fill. None of the welds were broken so I was confident it would not be a problem. Not sure if I'd be as confident with the newer stands with nuts and bolts though. Oh. Both 55's are the old stainless tanks with slate bottoms. Heavy tanks by themselves.
BTW I'm on a concrete slab so no problem with the flooring.

The older welded stands were available in both configurations. One where you could put the same footprint tank below and one you couldn't. For my 55's I have one of each. Same for my 29's. All of my stands are the old welded iron ones. I don't care for the new versions at all.


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