What were your troubles installing a 100gal in your house?

[Capslock]

I will be moving in the next couple of months. Within the next year I plan on putting together a tank in-wall in our soon-to-be living room. At that point I will be looking at 100gal + in the tank with the sump going down to the basement.

So considering the weight of water + salt + live rock + corals/fish/ and misc. The tank would probably be near 1,000 pounds! (maybe more?)

What problems did you have from the weight issue?

I know I will be needing to re-enforce my living room in the basement because of the age of the house; well, I will need to do this anyways with my 46gal tank as it is. So aside from that, did you need to set up anything in particular?

 

[Len]

The tank will weight way more then a 1000 pounds If you have a subfloor, have a contractor come over to look at it and perhaps reinforce it by adding support and/or sistering the joists.

Make sure the tank can get in the door! I had a friend who's tanks dimensions were too big to get through a single door, so they had to remove a window frame to get the tank in the house.

You'll need some friends over to help you move it in (glass suction cup holders are cheap and very helpful). Aside from that, a big tank isn't any harder then a small tank.

 

[Capslock]

len,

it probably would not fit into a door - but maybe it would.
My (dream) planned dimensions are 4' length,2' width, and 3' height. This is before taxes meaning I do not know if a build like that is possible at this point. - according to calculators that is about a 180gal.

so if you say 100 will be more than 1000....just talking sake - we are looking at around 3,000lbs after rock etc?

 

[Anonymous]

Another thing that very often gets overlooked is ventilation, large tanks can evaporate gallons of water every day, that water has got to go someplace and that someplace is in your house, if it's in wall into the fishroom where you're building it into, which for a small room can mean a very moist area with electrical stuff all over the place (aka bad news), that doesn't even mention the mold problem. So make sure your tank/room is properly ventilated

 

[Anonymous]

I had a 100 gallon in an NYC apartment without any problems. (except I had to sell it)

I'd also re-visit your dimensions. a 36" tall reef tank will be really expensive to light the bottom of the tank. And unless you're 7' tall, it will be REALLY difficult to reach the bottom of the tank. Both for aquascaping and to reach that fallen frag.

If you have space, I'd go with 3'deep and 24" tall. 250wDE or 400w SE lights will do nicely with that depth.

Other than that, you might want to go longer if you have the space. try taping out on the wall (at the height you want the tank) the shape of different tanks. then stand back and take a look. If you use blue painter's tape, you can leave it there for a day or two and have a second look. (get the wifey's help on this)

The last thing I can suggest is TAKE A LOT OF PICS! we're all picture whores around here, so you'll make us happy.

B