I have a general quaetion. I have a 180 gallon and a 300 gallon tank in my house and with all this talk about earthquakes going on i done know what to do. Do i secure the stand to the wall? How would I do that? Do i secure the tank to the stand and again how would i do that? Would it be better to have the stand secured to the wall with lets say large "L" brackets or soem kind of strap. I dont want the big one to come and have 500 gallons of water and fish all ovder the floor, I also dont want the tank to rip studs out of my wall. What do you guys thing? And sugestions? Please advise.
EarthQuakes and Fishtanks
- Thread starter steve1815
- Start date
I lived in SoCal for most of my life and went through some good size quakes.I have had different size big tank and they had no problems other then some water splashing on the floor.My 1,500 gallon tank was built outside and pushed up against the house and I had a sun room built around the tank.I didn't bolt or secure it to the house so if a big quake hit it should be no problem.A big one hit SoCal when I was on vacation in Hawaii.All that happened to the tank was it pulled away from the house a inch.That much weight and it moved that far !
Yah I mean you gotta remember that these aquariums are not light by any stretch when you get over 100 gallons. That 180 weighs almost 1 ton. I would say your biggest concern will be splash and water loss.
Please.....weight is irrevelent! How much does a house weigh?? In a decent quake count on houses moving meters both up and down and side to side. As previously mentioned.....in a 7.0 or larger the fish will be the least of your worries!!
You bring up a good point but water is also very resistant to movement. I mean you could remove your inhabitants and have them at a friends house. Iono though I would actually counterpoint that water is different than a house in an earthquake... Im not a physics major oranything but the mechanics seem like they would be different. Again purely speculation. If you are concerned about equipment loss get an insurance plan on your tank I'm sure lloyds would elp you out rofl. Have you been experiencing anything significant?
The only actual structure i could think of that might help is some elaborate weighting/ shock absorbtion system.
A pond might react differently but an aquarium in a house would move the same as the house itself....the weight would probably cause the fish room to be the weakest link in the house since it stresses the joists.....the most damage will be where the weakest part of the house is.....even a 10,000 gallon tank is not gonna stop the ground and house from heaving and swaying.....it would be worse on the east coast where earthquakes cause different types of movement bacause the underlying earth is much denser...of course much, much more likely to happen on the left coast! Anyone have fish set up in the 90s when the last larger quake struck ???
I don't think there is much you can do besides make sure you have insurance. That way when you come home to 500 gallons of water on what's left of your floor, you just make a phone call and forget it.
Yah for some reason I was under the imresin that the water would counter act a sway but that I ridiculous. If you are concerned I would relocate inhabitants and obtain insurance on the tank as well as expand to a flood plan on your homeowners.