The Planted Tank Forum banner

Should I stick a mat under my tank?

  • Yes

    Votes: 32 88.9%
  • No

    Votes: 4 11.1%

Mats under rimless tanks

19K views 36 replies 22 participants last post by  laqu 
#1 ·
I recently set up a RIMLESS 20 gallon long. Unfortunately, I did not put a yoga mat under this tank. There is water and a colony of shrimps in there right now. After reading some horror stories online about rimless tanks busting at the seams, I'm considering draining most of the water and putting a mat under the tank. HOWEVER, speaking to to other hobbyist some say its really not needed for smaller tanks. The tank is on a stand that is pretty level. Not perfect but only about 1/2 cm off. I have mats under all my other rimless tanks, I just skipped a step this time and I am kind of regretting it.

Should I stick a mat under anyways?
 
#4 ·
In my country, we used to put nothing under rimless tanks. I'm not sure if this will work for earthquake-socal-area.
However, I think you should do it, especially for rimless tank. We are in socal too.
Call few more friends, 20g is not a big deal. Cut it first, drain more than half water in it (a 20g with substrate and 5-7g of water is easy for 2 and a third person for putting the mat in), lift the tank up and put the mat or HD foam under it. So you don't stress out your shrimp.
Good look with your setup, I really like it. Learned many things from you.
 
#10 ·
Concept is to evenly distribute the weight across the entire bottom of the tank due to the floor or stand not being perfectly level and stand sagging over time. Like a mini shock absorber/cushion under the tank. The reported failures on rimless tanks are usually the seams when one side or corner is stress over time compared to the other side.
 
#9 ·
Took me 5 minutes to move my 20 long from my bedroom to my living room. Drain, lift, move. Filling took the longest. It only weighs about 50 pounds with most of the water drained.

Get the AquaPro 20 long? Exact tank I have. Great quality for $110
 
#17 ·
From what I was told Mr. Amano uses mats under his tanks. That is what saved his tanks from the earthquake that hit Japan. I was told the entire building shook but no tanks broke let alone cracked. What saved the tanks from cracking and breaking, the mats. Now there was a lot of water that spilled from the tanks but the tanks themselves were alright.

Dan
 
#23 ·
Oh wasnt meaning to come on strong, sorry if it seemed that way. That's the problem with non verbal communication, too much is lost. It prevents the glass from cracking because it evenly distributes the downward pressure of the aquarium and it's contents onto the stand, instead of having pressure points. Imagine those matress commercials that show pressure points on the back, it's quite a bit like that. Now when you have localized pressure points plus harmonic motion like an earthquake or even a person walking by without a care (fairly unlikely), the glass can break. That little bit of foam distributes the shock of harmonic energy throughout the bottom of the tank, instead of to specific pressure points creaded by surface imperfections in both the aquarium glass and the stand top.

I mentioned the walking thing because it's the same principle, though walking is much larger scale because there are quite a number of shock absorbtion systems built into our body, incluting the arch of your foot, bent knees, discs in your back, your glutes, calf muscles, to name a few. But the brain and optic nerve are quite a lot more sensitive than some aquarium glass :) This came to mind because i remember a guy who had several vertebra in his back fused and started having problems with headaches, and noticed pronounced vibration in his vision when he stepped. That would suck!
 
#25 ·
Easy there sparky, I'm just the messenger. According to what I was told the building shook, swayed, moved when it should have been stationary. Secondly, I was also told that Mr. Amano uses some sort of cork board but it's not exactly cork it is made of a wood found in Japan that absorbed the shock preventing the tanks from cracking, similar to the mats but firmer and thicker.

Now do the mats relieve stress from the tank, of course it does. It also serves as a buffer if you will between the vibrating equipment like filters and such from transferring to the tank. It's like a sound dampening mat. It absorbs sound, vibrations from getting to the tank and relieves pressure points as well.

Have you ever worked with Dynomat or other sound dampening systems before? If you have same principle.

Dan
 
#30 ·
We are using these various mats are a gasket material so almost all traditional gasket materials will work.

Currently, I'm using a yoga mat, the black foam used under floating laminate flooring, and a pc of top end hypo-alergenic carpet pad under glass & acrylic tanks.

Shock absorption has some value, but the leveling effect IMHO is much more important. When I do a 50% W/C I hear the load being taken off the stand by the creaking of the plywood top my 40 gl sits on. Being an Acrylic it will be more forgiving flex then the joints on a glass tank will be.
 
#29 ·
I think Hollywood has tricked many of us when it comes to earthquakes.. If you aren't at the center, you basically get a bunch of rocking. A tank in decent condition can take some uneven pressure like that for short durations no problem. Now the issue is when a tank isn't level and is subjected to continued stress over the course of months and years. That's when you get failures.
 
#32 ·
A bunch of rocking? Shook me right off my bed when we had one hit here a good 10 years ago, and i was nowhere near the center. Also collapsed some stuff around the sound. When a quake hits it's like dropping a pebble in a lake, big ripple effect.
Edit: Forgot you all arent from this area. The sound = puget sound.
 
#34 ·
When people say they put a mat under the tank to account for the base not being perfectly level, do they really mean flat? The two are different and I just wanted to be sure. I’m planning to set up a tank on a countertop that should be level but may not be exactly. I was going to use a mat to account for irregularities but if being level is the true issue, I would also have to use a sheet of something like plywood that I could shim as necessary.
Also, does a rimless tank need full support on the bottom or can it just be edge supported like on a rimmed tank? I was going make a small stand for a 12 gallon long and was wondering if it needed a “top”.

Thanks
 
#36 ·
Yeah, I think the words get a little confusing and are interchanged for each other. Typically, you want the mat to prevent stress points/compensate for irregularities on the surface.

You also want a level surface, but the mat won't do much for that. using a piece of plywood with shims is probably the best/easiest solution for a countertop or some other fixed object that you can't directly level/shim.
 
#37 ·
and i can just use a cut up yoga mat?
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top