PIMPALA
Well-Known Member
Whole fish tank when filled with water is very heavy.
Just to be fair... "very heavy" is a relative term. a 48x24x30 cube of concrete... or lead, is "very heavy". Sea water is 64 lbs per cubic foot... a cubic foot of concrete is about 150lbs. lead is over 700. his aquarium is 2,000lbs. if it were filled with concrete, it would weigh over 4,000lbs. have it filled with lead, and now its over 15,000 pounds.
now, from a construction and engineering standpoint, lets put this into perspective. had he filled his aquarium with molten lead, and the completed tank now weighed over 15,000lbs... a basic 2x4 construction stand, 3 feet tall, 4 feet wide, and 2 feet deep, basically a 2x4 box, skinned with 1/2" plywood, NO center braces at ALL. nothing. just a box, it would easily hold the lead aquarium, and MORE.
here is a basic, middle school physics lesson (this one has cross bracing, but he says in the video, even without it, the box will hold 1,000 times its weight).
Ten Thousand to one: Physics Lesson Plan | Funderstanding
so with cross braces, it hold 10,000 times its weight, and about 1,000 times its weight with no cross bracing. lets be "aquarium in the house safe" and instead of 1,000 times the weight, we call it... 200 times. that means, if your stand is built properly, and it weighs 100lbs, it should hold 20,000 lbs.