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Prevent aquarium blowout

F

Franka

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
I presently live on the 20 floor of a condominium complex, and recently purchased a 30 gal rimless bowed glass aquarium. I am paranoid that the aquarium might burst open and flood my space and units below.
What can I do to assure that will not happen, or at least get a warning of a leak before the main event.
Sorry for being so long winded.
 
Franka said:
I presently live on the 20 floor of a condominium complex, and recently purchased a 30 gal rimless bowed glass aquarium. I am paranoid that the aquarium might burst open and flood my space and units below.
What can I do to assure that will not happen, or at least get a warning of a leak before the main event.
Sorry for being so long winded.
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I live in NYC also in a high rise doorman elevator building i only live on the 17th floor of a 40 floor building and i have a 125 gallon a 55 and 36 bowfront. Trust me your 30 gallon tank is fine these high rise buildings are made of concrete and steel with water and sand and decorations you tank will weigh no more then 300 pounds.
If your still worried about a NEW tank blowing out. First make sure it is level
 
troublesum said:
I live in NYC also in a high rise doorman elevator building i only live on the 17th floor of a 40 floor building and i have a 125 gallon a 55 and 36 bowfront. Trust me your 30 gallon tank is fine these high rise buildings are made of concrete and steel with water and sand and decorations you tank will weigh no more then 300 pounds.
If your still worried about a NEW tank blowing out. First make sure it is level
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Thanks for your reply. I'm not concerned about the weight. I'm worried that I might have a blowout and release all 30 gallons at once, causing damage to the units below and of course my unit as well.
I would like to find some way to be able to prevent an actual blowout by straps, or plastic wrap that would contain the water long enough for me to take action
 
troublesum said:
Again these buildings are made from steel and concrete so damage to your neighbors would be very minimal if any
i hope you didn't but a Petco tank.....LOL
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True they are concrete and steel. That stuff wont have a problem with water. However, there is a lot of drywall, insulation and electrical in the walls and ceiling as well as engineered wood flooring just to name a few things that don't like water. I have witness washer leaks cause hundreds of thousands of $ worth of damage. Mind you I don't think 30 gal would do quite that much damage
 
I worked in NYC for 2yrs doing custom installations and maintenance. We had a customer upper east side who had 500g ish system in a 15 floor apartment. We flooded down stairs apartments a couple times because of failed seams on an in house built sump.
He moved to avoid more floods and we promised him we wouldn’t flood any one again and flooded the downstairs while removing his tanks. I was not there thankfully.
Our office was on the second floor of a warehouse type building over by the Associated Press building in mid town. We flooded down stairs the custom light and antique light restoration company below us a few times.
We had multiple tanks around the city many in excess of 200g with no issues ever. We had a penthouse with a 1000g plus custom Living Color tank too. This was a 15 plus story bldg.
Your 30g tank is new and if level should not be an issue. Not an unfounded concern but I wouldn’t lose sleep over it. You can purchase wet alarms for water heaters that would work if your tank leaked. If you have a catastrophic blow though it won’t warn you.
 
fishguy1978 said:
I worked in NYC for 2yrs doing custom installations and maintenance. We had a customer upper east side who had 500g ish system in a 15 floor apartment. We flooded down stairs apartments a couple times because of failed seams on an in house built sump.
He moved to avoid more floods and we promised him we wouldn’t flood any one again and flooded the downstairs while removing his tanks. I was not there thankfully.
Our office was on the second floor of a warehouse type building over by the Associated Press building in mid town. We flooded down stairs the custom light and antique light restoration company below us a few times.
We had multiple tanks around the city many in excess of 200g with no issues ever. We had a penthouse with a 1000g plus custom Living Color tank too. This was a 15 plus story bldg.
Your 30g tank is new and if level should not be an issue. Not an unfounded concern but I wouldn’t lose sleep over it. You can purchase wet alarms for water heaters that would work if your tank leaked. If you have a catastrophic blow though it won’t warn you.
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fishguy1978 said:
I worked in NYC for 2yrs doing custom installations and maintenance. We had a customer upper east side who had 500g ish system in a 15 floor apartment. We flooded down stairs apartments a couple times because of failed seams on an in house built sump.
He moved to avoid more floods and we promised him we wouldn’t flood any one again and flooded the downstairs while removing his tanks. I was not there thankfully.
Our office was on the second floor of a warehouse type building over by the Associated Press building in mid town. We flooded down stairs the custom light and antique light restoration company below us a few times.
We had multiple tanks around the city many in excess of 200g with no issues ever. We had a penthouse with a 1000g plus custom Living Color tank too. This was a 15 plus story bldg.
Your 30g tank is new and if level should not be an issue. Not an unfounded concern but I wouldn’t lose sleep over it. You can purchase wet alarms for water heaters that would work if your tank leaked. If you have a catastrophic blow though it won’t warn you.
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Thanks for the information and assurance. Not sure after reading your post that I won't continue to loose sleep though 😭.
I'm hoping to find a way not to entirely stop the possibility of a blowout, but to limit the initial discharge of water until I can take action.
I will definitely take your advice and purchase wet alarms. At least I'll be made aware of slow leaks 🙏
 
Well there’s one easy solution, put the 30 gallon tank in a bigger tank. If the 30 leaks then it leaks into the surrounding tank. A 40 breeder should be big enough for your tank to fit into.
 
fishhead0103666 said:
Well there’s one easy solution, put the 30 gallon tank in a bigger tank. If the 30 leaks then it leaks into the surrounding tank. A 40 breeder should be big enough for your tank to fit into.
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Thanks. That would work. I'll have to get a rectangular tank as my bowed tank would be difficult to find one that it would fit inside.
Was really hoping there was another way, maybe like wrapping in some sort of plastic heat shrink wrap
 
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