I looked at my desk yesterday and noticed that it was starting to sag in the middle by about 3/4 inch from the weight of one of my tanks. It holds about 34L and is pretty much sitting at the weakest point on my desk so I decided to reinforce it, because I'm clever like that

What I want to know is how much does water weigh? Ideally, I'd like to know the weight of 1L in g or Kg. I tried looking it up but my search came up with so much crap I gave up and decided to ask on here instead, and I don't have anything in the house the weigh the water myself.

I've got 2 tanks on my desk which hold a total of about 18/19 UK gallons when full to the top, which they usually are, plus I have the ornaments, gravel, pumps, filters and even the tanks themselves putting pressure on everything. I just hope the desk can take all the weight, and more importantly, I hope the floor can take it. I don't think my parents will be too happy if my bedroom ends up in the living room...

Here is a link to a page with weights of filled aquariums:
http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/tipsandt.../bltanksize.htm

Water weighs approximately 8 pounds per gallon. I like to generalize and say that a glass tank is "10 pounds per gallon" - which allows for the weight of the glass, filters, etc. If you have a lot of gravel in the bottom, make that about 12 pounds per gallon of tank.

Thanks guys. That means I've got about 300 pounds of equipment on my desk. What's that in Kg? My glass tank weighs loads on its own and I know this because I had to carry it nearly a mile to get it home. It was pouring with rain and I nearly dropped it soooo many times. When I got home I felt like my arms were that little bit longer.

Let me think..I've got 20UK gallons of water, the glass tank (with filter included), the plastic tank, 2 additional filters, 2 big air pumps, loads of ornaments and airstones etc, about 8Kg of gravel, a ton of other equipment, treatments, meds & food, and roughly 5 gallons of treated water on standby for water changes. That seems quite a lot of weight to put on my desk, and my floor now I think of it. Plus I've got my PC, stereo with 4 speakers, TV, Sky box and PS2. I wonder how much more weight my floor can take before my whole room falls down a level......Oh, and my desk must weigh about 100 Kg on it's own. It's massive! I'm getting a bit worried now...

Metric is very easy to work out. 1 millilitre of water = 1 gram. So 1 litre of water = 1 kg.

The floor can most likely take it, however, the best way to situate large, heavy items on a second storey of a house is against the outside walls of the room, with the item running perpendicular to the floor joists, rather than parallel to the floor joists. This way, the weight is distributed over several joists, rather than just one or two. Also, the joists are the most strong where they meet the outside walls.

I have a 70 gallon tank, complete with solid oak stand and canopy on my second floor of my house. I checked with our building inspector, and he seemed to think it was OK

1 kg is equal to 2.2 lbs. I grew up with the imperial system, then Canada switched to metric in the '70's, so I am always converting things in my head

Thanks for the info guys. I would have replied sooner but for some reason I didn't get any emails notifying me of posts. It's all good though cos I got a new PC yesterday and I'll be online by next monday, so I can check all my posts whenever I like

Just worked it out. I've got about 75Kg/165lbs of water, 45Kg/99lbs of equipment, 130Kg/286lbs of desk and other bits, so that's a total of 250Kg/550lbs. OMG, that's a quarter of a ton! Trust me, these houses aren't exactly well built. They went up in no time and are what they call 'cost effective accomodation'

I've got the desk running along a load-bearing wall, but not an outside wall. My neighbour's house is on the other side of the wall where the desk is. As for the joists, I have absolutely no idea where they are. The weight of the desk is spread out quite a lot though. It's 5 feet wide which is practically the whole length of the wall. It's quite big and heavy though, even when it's totally bare because the bottom section is 2.5 feet high and the top section is 2 feet 2 inches high, making a total of 4 feet 8 inches high. It cost me £400 and was a nightmare to put together

If the desk is bowing already and you haven't sorted out a place for it, then I'd move the tank to the floor or something ASAP, the tinyest little bow puts pressure on the glass and it could crack any time.

Hi Lucy, it's been a while. You ok?
The desk is ok now. It's hard to describe exactly what the problem is so I'll try to get a pic up to show you. It's not the main horizontal that was bowing, it was another bit just above it, at the bottom of the top half. The glass tank is in a good place. I put it above my TV because that means there are 2 vertical supports under the tank, which transmit the pressure down through the desk, to the floor. I'll get a pic to show you...

I'm good thanks and picture sounds like a good plan as I have no idea what you are talking about

I told you it was hard to explain lol. I actually made a short vid but it's gonna take a while to upload to photobucket. 26 minutes to be precise.

EDIT: I'm doing it on YouTube. It's going at least twice as fast

I wont be able to see it if its a video.

Here you go Lucy. Got some pics instead:

Main glass tank is above the TV:


Main supports on the right side of the desk:


Plastic tank in bottom middle of top section (check out the nasty water mark on my old speakers. got a new stereo now Every piece of electrical equipment has bee damaged by water during water changes and I've gone thru 4 TV's in 3 months!):


I had to use a couple of my weights to hold up the middle (look at how many cables there are. I've got 13 or 14 plugs in my room and about a mile of cable lol:

Yikes, 4 tvs! I'd move it before you loose another one!

The tub shelf seems fine, especially with the weights holding it up. The glass one seems better than I thought it would be, because its got that black framing round it which holds the glass.. is that right? the bottom glass isnt touching the desk is it?

The TV's were my own stupid fault. I need to be more careful but each one has been covered by insurance and I didn't tell them that I got water in them.

The tub shelf was bowing about 3/4 of an inch in the centre and was making some really strange creaking noises so I had to lift all the weight with one hand, and slide the dumbell weights in with the other. Not an easy task!
In the first picture, you see where my Sky box is? See the support on the far right at the edge of the desk? That was almost off the desk because of what the tub was doing, which was a shock because it's all glued together. I had to use that hammer that you can see in the second picture to bang it back into place. The fish didn't like that one bit, but it was either that or have Prowler's tank come crashing down..


Yeah, the glass tank has a solid plastic base which goes up the sides about an inch, so it's pretty strong. It's not a cheap tank, I just got it for a cheap price It pays to have friends in high places. I got it half price with all the gravel and stuff thrown in

On my! Yeah, I see what you mean!

..It might be worth investing in one of those cheap metal double stands. As if you are short on space, they will only take up the space of one tank.

I don't know what stands you're talking about Lucy. Got a pic?

Like this: http://image.bizrate.com/resize?sq=160&uid...50779&mid=55089
Just gotta stick a wooden board in the two shelf gap bits and you have yourself a stand

Thanks Lucy. Nice idea but I haven't got the room for it. When I was taking those photos, my back was against the wall. That give's you some idea of how small my room is. The desk is nearly the full length, and I've got my bed next to it on the right, running along the outside wall, and my door on the left. It's about 8 feet by 6 feet. Not even enough room to swing a gerbil, never mind a cat! Add to all this a full sized vibrating leather office chair and there's just enough room for 2, maybe 3 people to stand up in there. I've got shelves all along the wall opposite my desk, and I even had to build one to store my unopened fish treatments, which you can see in the first pic. Proud to say it's level

My sister should be moving out next year and her room is bigger, so I'll be getting a 100 gallon tank at the very least. She's got a long desk that's just one section, not 2 like mine, and it's the perfect size for a 100 gallon or even a 150 gallon, plus the treatments, meds, foods etc, and my PC. I just can't seem to get her out of here....

oh.. lol, ok. I'd stick a big plank of wood down that right side to stop the side slipping out again.

I think it'll be ok now I've jammed the dumbell weights in there Lucy. The centre of the desk bowing caused the side to slip. I could be wrong though. It may be the weight of Prowler's tank that's causing it to move but I'll keep an eye on it. If it starts to go again, all I have to do is screw a lump of 2x2 onto it, but I wanna avoid doing that if I can because it'll look a bit ugly. Not that it'll matter cos my room looks like crap at the moment anyway. Loads of fist sized dents and holes in the walls and door... Been a stressful couple of years...