moving - strange question

R

rocklymber

Hi everyone,

I have a weird question. I'm moving, and I have a 20g tank set up and I plan to move it to the new house. The only issue is that the only place in the new house to place the tank is in the living room, which is carpeted.

I've never had an issue with this (or any tank) leaking, and I was just wondering if any of you had any thoughts on what the unintentioned consequences of setting the tank on carpet might be.

Thanks in advance for your input!

-Penny
 
I had my 100g on carpet at a few different apartments and the main problem was that it ruined the carpet underneath the stand. I always lost my deposit and a few times had to pay. When those drips and salt creep get under the parts of the stand that touch carpet it just kills it. I might have been able to rent or pay someone to carpet clean it, but never did. A 20g shouldn't be as bad, but accidents do happen. I would do it all again if I had to! To me it is worth it just to have the aquarium in the main living area of the house.
 
Thanks for the insight. We're planning to replace the carpet with laminate or hardwoods at some point in the future, and we own the house, so no deposit loss issues. :) I didn't think about the salt creep getting under there and damaging the carpet, though. Definitely a consideration.
 
Salt creep is a pain in more ways than one. If you can avoid it looking odd you might try putting down something waterproof under a small area/border rug before you put down the stand. That way you might trash the cheap cover rug, but won't destroy the room carpet. I don't trust plans to replace until they actually happen, and then you'll just have hopefully well sealed hardwood that you want to keep salt out of.
 
on my nano I folded a garbage bag in half and put that under the stand. on my upgrade I forgot to to that. maybe a rubber computer mat might work.
 
@jerryclunsford wrote:
You could get a small amount of hardwood flooring a make a section just a little larger than the stand. said:
This, or go to Home Depot / Lowe's and look for a small indoor/outdoor rug that has a rubber backing to put under the stand. That way any spills will go on the rug and not get to the carpet underneath.
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Thanks for the input everyone! I talked the hubby into letting me put it in his office, which has laminate flooring. Of course, he doesn't like the look of my tank, so that also meant buying a new tank. :-D
 
#winning

And to answer the original question, I had tanks on carpet before. I never had a ruined spot, even after many years. That would be a compressed spot for a while, but a good carpet cleaning helped make it look normal... it took a couple of weeks to fluff up fully. The other issue you may run into with a tank & stand on carpet is that it may lean forward. Along the walls under the carpet is a tack strip. This holds the carpet securely, but it's like a fat shim under the back of your system. So you may need to shim the front to level it out properly, and avoid it rocking back and forth when working in it.
 
@Marc wrote:
#winning And to answer the original question said:
That's a good point that I forgot about. I have needed to put a 1/4" shim along the front of many stands that I had on carpet against walls over the years. Moving the tank a couple more inches away from the wall so the stand isn't resting on the tack strip works too.
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OH, good to know, in case we decide to put this in the living room instead. The floor in the office is very uneven, and we would have to work some magic to ensure the tank is level.

I got a biocube that's been modified with an LED fixture, so I'm super excited about setting it up. I do need a stand for it though...
 
FYI since it's been a problem with mine, violet (410-420 nm) LED's will discolor then crack the stock biocube light splash cover (the clear part) over time. It takes a year or two, but you may end up replacing the center of the shield as a result.
 
Basically, don't spill water. If you do, dry it off as quickly as you can every time. :)
 
I have mine on stained concrete ground level :), which means any water that drops while doing wc can be cleaned really easily or just evaporates/penetrates the stained concrete, I can imagine carpet would be a pain with the water drops, but as long as you clean it fast it would be fine.

About the leveled tank on carpet, that is really important, worst thing about carpet imo is that it will likely make it harder to level and also the stand will only appear to be making contact with the floor on the entire perimeter, but because of the nature of carpet compression that will not be true at all, this could potentially be an issue, but likely only with 100+ gallon tanks. If the stand or tank rocks while you are cleaning it, that would definitely be a big issue for any tank size IMO :), albeit I can't fathom a tank over 40g rocking, they are really quite heavy once filled up.
 
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