Chuck's 150 Gallon Reef Project

[phlounder]

And they look to be plastic. I don't know If I would want all of that weight sitting on four points made of plastic. I would check for level first, before putting anything under the stand.

[ChuckG]

Originally Posted by Daggs

ChuckG,

What your looking for are called insert glides. I know took me forever to find them for a stand i built for my brother. So, I think this in an example of what your looking for.

Plastic Furniture Components
About 3/4 of the page down.
The one you want are the ajustable ones. Also you will have to get the insert gromets. Check out the PDF links they give a little more detail on them.

Edit: Oh and one more thing i forgot to add, the weight allowance on them is "Each". So you can add the four legs up to hold your weight of the tank. The industry also does that with casters.

I see only square ones on that page. My legs are 1.5 x 2.0
I suppose I could use a 1.5 square and add a .5 wedge but I don't know what that would do to the performance. It also looks like the minimum quantity there is 100. I only need 4.

Originally Posted by DaveK

Before you go out and add levelers on the legs consider the floor where you are going to put the tank. You'll have the entire weight of the tank on only 4 points. This is a lot of weight spread out over a very small area.

Also, you will very seldom move the tank once it's set up.

Your best alternative might be to get a package of shims for Home Depot, and shim all along the areas that need it. This way you'll have the weight spread out much better.

If your floor is level, and your stand construction square, you will not even need to shim it, and you'll get the best weight distribution of all.

The weight is already basically on 4 points. The legs were made as a solid piece and the lower horizontal pieces are raised about a half an inch so all the weight is on the legs already. The floor is not level. Below is a picture of the problem area.



The plain outlet cover hides the cable wiring. Metal conduit runs down from that box and curves to go underneath (within) the slab floor. This is why I couldn't move that box at all and just had to cut out the wall around it. When I was laying the tile in this area I could see that the concrete was really lumpy and uneven. I ground the area down with a hand grinder the best I could before I laid the tile but it is apparently still off a bit. I also didn't realize at the time that I would be putting the leg of an aquarium stand right in that problem area or I would have concentrated more on leveling the slab originally. History at this point. The rest of the floor area is tile over slab concrete and appears to be level. The frame is level. Because of this one high spot, when the frame is level it looks like I have about a quarter inch gap on the right rear leg. I thought about using a metal shim at first but then I thought that adjustable levelers would be better for two reasons.
1) I won't know really how level it is until I start adding water and can view the water line. If I needed to make a slight adjustment the leveler would be nice to have.
2) I plan on extending the floor of the cabinet over the top of those base boards showing in the picture. If left as is then I will probably have to use two sheets of 3/4" plywood to accomplish this. With the levelers on the legs I can bring the whole frame up to the level of those base boards and use one sheet of plywood.

Originally Posted by phlounder

And they look to be plastic. I don't know If I would want all of that weight sitting on four points made of plastic. I would check for level first, before putting anything under the stand.

You'd be suprised at the weight that levelers can bear. Even the plastic 1.5 inch on the website link from above are rated for about 660 lbs. So four of them would handle like 2640 lbs. I'm probably looking at 1500 lbs - 2000 max

[DaveK]

Keep in mind that when they say 660 lbs, you likely don;t want to run it at much more than about half that. Remember a failure of one of them will cause major problems.

Yes, being able to adjust them is nice, but you could do as well with metal shims. I've used large flat washers for shims, where I only need one or two.

[ChuckG]

Put 3 fender washers under the one leg and it appears pretty darn level. I'm just afraid that once the tank is on it and I fill it up to a 24" weir in the back of the tank and I end up with a dry end then it's going to be a pain to adjust at that point.

[phlounder]

Originally Posted by ChuckG

Put 3 fender washers under the one leg and it appears pretty darn level. I'm just afraid that once the tank is on it and I fill it up to a 24" weir in the back of the tank and I end up with a dry end then it's going to be a pain to adjust at that point.

Got a level?

[ChuckG]

Yea and the bubble is within the lines but "within" the lines doesn't necessarily mean "exactly level".

[ChuckG]

Did I ever point out that I'm somewhat of a perfectionist?

[ChuckG]

BTW: Ordered the OM 4way last night. It's a done deal.

[phlounder]

[ChuckG]

Sure hope I have enough money at the end of this project to actually put some life into the tank. It would be a shame to sit there watching a see through washing machine.