moving tank

[PrettyBoy]

just wanted to get some input of how hard you think this is actually going to be. I need to move my 180 over to the left about 1.5 inches. this is an in wall tank with only a few inches of space on each side of the tank. It is sitting on smooth plywood. I am trying to minimize taking livestock out, i know some corals deffiantely need to come out. How much water do you think needs to be drained to get this thing to move with 2 young guys moving it? Probably have a good 200-240lbs of rock in there too..... I know i am out of my mind

 

[Patriot76]

just wanted to get some input of how hard you think this is actually going to be. I need to move my 180 over to the left about 1.5 inches. this is an in wall tank with only a few inches of space on each side of the tank. It is sitting on smooth plywood. I am trying to minimize taking livestock out, i know some corals deffiantely need to come out. How much water do you think needs to be drained to get this thing to move with 2 young guys moving it? Probably have a good 200-240lbs of rock in there too..... I know i am out of my mind

i having a hard time visualizing moving an in-wall tank, some pics maybe?? i have a 180 in-wall also.

and i know this probably not that you want to hear, but i would take all the LR out before moving the tank at all, you dont want the LR to shift and crach into the glass. you are probably gonna have drain about 90% of the water anyhow.

 

[redfishbluefish]

I would not attempt to move the tank with all that weight. However, I would be more comfortable rigging the stand, slightly lifting it, and moving the whole shebang that inch and a half. Then again, I’ve jacked up houses before to put in new main beams that were eaten by termites.

 

[JerseyWendy]

I know that this can in no way be compared, but we moved our 75 over several feet with simply using a car jack, vinyl carpet/furniture moving pads and the strength of 2 men. I emptied out some water, moved the pieces of rock/coral that weren't super stable into a different container, then I moved out as per instructions of my hubby, and my son and hubby moved the whole caboodle over.

This is how it went down:
1. with jack lift tank enough to put pads under right sides
2. with jack lift tank enough to put pads under left sides
3. empty as much water as was requested
4. go outside (that would have been me while the guys did the rest)
5. 5 minutes later I was called back in and everything was moved over several feet. Moved over and around, I should say. BUT - it was only a 75 gallon.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Wendy, details...Did they jack the tank or jack the stand that the tank was on? If they jacked the tank, how did they get the jack under the lower lip of the tank? Whooo...after typing that, I can’t imagine lifting an edge of a tank with more than 15 – 20 gallons of water in it…at 8.3 lbs/gallon, that’s 125 – 167 pounds. A single point lift on glass with that much weight would scare me. I could understand why they wanted you out of the room!

 

[magic]

If you need a 3rd hand let me know.

Bob

 

[PrettyBoy]

thanks for the input guys. I ended up training probably 120gallons of water, took out 3/4s of the rock and managed to move it over just enough to get the vortech in. I really hope these vortechs are awesome because my rock work looks terrible now and I actually liked the way it looked last time. It took quite a few hours so most of the rock is just kind of thrown in there, need to spend a few hours aquascaping when I feel better

 

[ds4x4]

Glad that the move went well! thanks for giving us the update

 

[JerseyWendy]

They jacked the stand where the tank was on. Of course the canopy and lights were removed first. It's a heavy duty jack (from the military). First Alex shimmied (sp.) one corner so that he could get the jack under there, and, according to him, the rest was easy. We only needed to jack it enough to fit those carpet thingies under there.

They wanted me out of there because I was driving everyone nuts with my worries. :-[

Wendy, details...Did they jack the tank or jack the stand that the tank was on? If they jacked the tank, how did they get the jack under the lower lip of the tank? Whooo...after typing that, I can’t imagine lifting an edge of a tank with more than 15 – 20 gallons of water in it…at 8.3 lbs/gallon, that’s 125 – 167 pounds. A single point lift on glass with that much weight would scare me. I could understand why they wanted you out of the room!