your choice bro. good luck anyways. the tank should be sufficient for a couple of years anyway regardless of wat the other people are saying....6by4 is quite a lot of swimming space for juvenile arowanas.
building a 6x4x3 contrete tank for aro
- Thread starter hatorihanzoe
- Start date
so how do i make sure it can support the weight? maybe its safer to have the floor portion of the garage in which the tank will resides.
a car's weight is distributated over a much larger area than the tank plus the tank's weight will be more concentrated and constant. most garage slabs are not reinforced (wire mesh is not re-bar!). i've seen quite a few concrete slabs crack from the weight of large tanks. i guess you can call Bderick67 if anything happens.......
my advice is first find out what kind of slab you have and than check with the local town engineer or a structural engineer.
my advice is first find out what kind of slab you have and than check with the local town engineer or a structural engineer.
The water in your tank will weigh approx 4500 lbs and be evenly distributed over a 24 sq ft area, so less then 200 lbs per sq ft. A honda accord sedan weighs 3400 lbs and all the weight is carried by the concrete slab at four 8" x 8" spots(tires), so each 8" x 8" part of slab is supporting 850lbs, which equates to about 1700 lbs per sq ft. So you can draw your own conclusion.
b-man does give good advise though, because concrete is some what unpredictable. I have a cracked concrete slab in front of my house, not from a large tank, nor a car, this slab is cracked and only sees foot traffic.
b-man does give good advise though, because concrete is some what unpredictable. I have a cracked concrete slab in front of my house, not from a large tank, nor a car, this slab is cracked and only sees foot traffic.
A 6x4 will easily support 6 aros with a good filter system. I would space heat the garage and top up with water heating.
thanks for the input, are there any alternative to using concrete? i want something that really is strong and light covering 3 sides with a viewing window. seems the customer aquarium ppl i contacted don't seem to do this sort of thing. maybe i should get pond ppl and get them build a pond w/ a viewing glass. maybe acrylic would be better but i am worry that it scratches very easily and the store ppl say don't worry i can remove it very easily. i am thinking why would i want to buy something that i can constantly repair? doesn't make sense right? also if i do go with acrylic or glass i am worry about the temperature as in canada we get -30 c here. i guess i don't have to worry that much if i insult the garage well enough with high R value insulation right?
I would recomend 1/2" tempered glass so that no worries with breaking glass..
Here's a diagram on how to place glass in a concrete tank..
Just make sure that it's water tight with silicon and everything's good to go..
Support glass are for possible leaks and support from sides and top..
water pressure will keep the glass in place..
Here's a diagram on how to place glass in a concrete tank..
Just make sure that it's water tight with silicon and everything's good to go..
Support glass are for possible leaks and support from sides and top..
water pressure will keep the glass in place..
