how much rock..

[knutty]

I have a 55 gallon all glass tank. I wil lbe using 60 lbs. of black sand. How many pounds of large chunk rock can I add before I need to start worrying about the limitations of the tank? I dont want to break the bottom out.... I do have it on a nice stand.

 

[teknikz]

well ive got 50 kilo's of elephant skin rock in my cichlid tank and had no problems so u should be able to to get away with a fair amount

 

[knutty]

50 kilograms - 110 us pounds. what size is your tank?

 

[knutty]

plus, how many pounds of substrate did u have?

 

[teknikz]

its a 30 gallon tank......and its got about 50 pounds of sand in it too

 

[knutty]

well then I should be fine. I will be using 60-70 black sand and 50-90 pounds of large chunk rock. i guess that will be fine.

 

[teknikz]

if ur worried about weight then try gettin some rock thats not so dense....lava rock is ideal......nice and chunky but also very very light

 

[knutty]

very very light and very very expensive. i have 2 peices, small mind you, that cost about 15 USD each. the alrge rock was free. I have 80 bucks in sand. i think i am done for a while. just bought a new filter system to replace my fluval 304 and power compact lighting.

 

[guppymonkey]

Why is the weight of the rocks such an issue? In a large tank there is hundreds if not thousands of pounds of water depending on the size of the tank. How much influence does a little bit of rock have on the structural integrity of the tank?

 

[teknikz]

well i think 1 litre of water is 1lb in weight....so my 125 litre would have 125lb of water in it.....then an extra 50lb of sand....then another 100lb of rocks.......and its fine...but.....im sure that theres only a certain amount of weight a glass tank can hold......some stands arent that nifty these days......im lucky as my tanks are juwel with juwel stands which are very sturdy.....but i wouldnt be suprised if some ppl have had tanks crack on them due to too much weight