New Flooring with tank in place?

[aaron186]

My wife just informed me she wants new floor in the downstairs. It’s an open concept room and the tank is on one of the walls. The entire floor is tile and grout. She wants hardwood or something similar without grout. I have a 100 gal total Red Sea tank.

How difficult will it be to get new floors with that tank up and running? Will I need to drain it and put everything into an emergency holding bin? Do you think the installers would be able to slide/move the tank with it running? I wish I had more space or I would use this as an excuse to upgrade to a bigger one but it’s the largest I can fit in its location.

 

[threebuoys]

My wife just informed me she wants new floor in the downstairs. It’s an open concept room and the tank is on one of the walls. The entire floor is tile and grout. She wants hardwood or something similar without grout. I have a 100 gal total Red Sea tank.

How difficult will it be to get new floors with that tank up and running? Will I need to drain it and put everything into an emergency holding bin? Do you think the installers would be able to slide/move the tank with it running? I wish I had more space or I would use this as an excuse to upgrade to a bigger one but it’s the largest I can fit in its location.

Trying to move that tank with water in it would likely be a disaster. It probably weighs 1000 lbs. I would worry the glass would break.

If the stand has four legs rather than solid floor to tank sides, you could Possibility use a cribbing process with jacks to raise the tank and stand high enough to work under it. You would need to be an expert to do that. I did it with a slate pool table once. I personally would not try it with my 125 gallon tank. Even without water, the tank/stand/sump combination probably weighs 300+ lbs. You could put the fish / water in 3 Brute trashcans very temporarily while to move the tank, replace the floor beneath it, then return the tank to its home.

 

[Rjukan]

My wife just informed me she wants new floor in the downstairs. It’s an open concept room and the tank is on one of the walls. The entire floor is tile and grout. She wants hardwood or something similar without grout. I have a 100 gal total Red Sea tank.

How difficult will it be to get new floors with that tank up and running? Will I need to drain it and put everything into an emergency holding bin? Do you think the installers would be able to slide/move the tank with it running? I wish I had more space or I would use this as an excuse to upgrade to a bigger one but it’s the largest I can fit in its location.

I did a laminate fake wood floor in my basement (it looks awesome btw) and just left the tank in place and worked around it. Used a nice piece of quarter round trim along the bottom of the stand and boom, done lol. I saved some planks so I could attempt to patch it when/if I ever sell the house.

 

[Pntbll687]

My wife just informed me she wants new floor in the downstairs. It’s an open concept room and the tank is on one of the walls. The entire floor is tile and grout. She wants hardwood or something similar without grout. I have a 100 gal total Red Sea tank.

How difficult will it be to get new floors with that tank up and running? Will I need to drain it and put everything into an emergency holding bin? Do you think the installers would be able to slide/move the tank with it running? I wish I had more space or I would use this as an excuse to upgrade to a bigger one but it’s the largest I can fit in its location.

DO NOT TRY TO MOVE IT FULL OF WATER. This is a sure fire way to have a disaster on your hands.

Get a small stock tank, drain the water and rock, put in the stock tank. Re-setup after the flooring is done.

 

[exnisstech]

I did a laminate fake wood floor in my basement (it looks awesome btw) and just left the tank in place and worked around it. Used a nice piece of quarter round trim along the bottom of the stand and boom, done lol. I saved some planks so I could attempt to patch it when/if I ever sell the house.

This is probably the only thing to do without draining the tank.

 

[dschuffert]

I would not move it full of water. I would drain and move it for the floor installation.

 

[00W]

We redid our floors as well, left the tank in place, did the floor around it.
When it came to the floor under the tank I pumped out tank water into brutes on floor dollies. Removed all the rock to the brutes.
Drained the tank to 2 inches of water, left fish in it and four of us moved the tank onto 2 dollies.
They did the remaining floor and we moved the tank back.
Whole thing took about an hour.
Pumped the water back in and rescaped.
Even left the lights plugged in.

 

[Harpo]

Hard wood floors and salt water are a bad combination. What about wood look tile floor?

 

[Cell]

I'd be surprised if the installers are willing to move the tank. Definitely have to drain it to move. Ideally just leave a tile base under the tank and a foot or two surrounding.

 

[jabberwock]

I did this in October with a smaller tank. 25 gallons. Check my build thread for details.

 

[PharmrJohn]

If your tank is on tile, I'd consider leaving tile underneath it and around it as well. Then just redo the rest of the floor. When I was considering putting something hardwood down in my living room, I was gonna do tile flooring around and under where my tank was gonna be. But the wife decided on tile for the entire living room, making the installation less problematic.