Questions on setting up tank with a used wooden aquarium stand

[Captain Ron]

In a few days I am planning on purchasing a neighbor's 90 gallon setup (fish, rocks, coral, sump, equipment, the whole running system) and get it moved a few doors down to my place. The person I am purchasing the setup from says that the stand is 2 years old and he "Thompson waterproofed it" and placed some EPDM (rubber pond liner on the bottom and sides to contain any sump overflows.) He says the stand hasn't had contact with overflow water, just "normal condensation". The stand is a black painted wood commercially built (as opposed to a DIY) stand. How do I tell if the stand is in good condition to properly bear the weight of a full 90 gallon aquarium? Are there any specific signs I should look for? Also, how long would one expect wooden aquarium stands to last?

Thanks in advance for any information and advice.

 

[Rcpilot]

2yrs old - factory stand..... It's probably fine, but I would want to reinforce it with glue and screws if any part of it looked shady, after you take a closer look at it.

Those stands are built with solid pine boards and the top rim sits into a routered edge to transfer all the weight down through the sides and legs. When you set your tank on top, the weight is being evenly distributed all arounf the stand.

Math time:
90g reef tank -- 1000lbs with rocks and sand and water

Most 90's are 48" x 21" so just a little under 12 lineal feet of bottom lip to distribute that weight. For ease of math, lets assume it's 1 inch wide.

That calcs out to about 84lbs per lineal foot.

Divide by 12 - and remember we used 1 inch wide to represent the vertical pine boards and the thickness of the bottom lip on the tank.

7psi at the floor. Or 7 pounds per lineal inch arounf the tank.

Roughly :confused:

 

[Captain Ron]

Thanks for the reply. The tank has been moved now and I re-used the stand. Everything seemed fine as far as I could tell when I looked over the stand after the tank had been moved off of it. I guess time will tell.