I nevertheless remember the sound. It wasn't a snap or a bang. It was a slow, agonizing groan coming from the floorboards of my third-floor apartment. I had just curtains scaping a endearing 55-gallon long. It was my pride and joy. Id spent three months salary upon imported Ohko rock and high-grade ADA Amazonia soil. I felt gone a king. That is, until I realized my "king" setup weighed as much as a baby elephant. I hadnt used an aquarium size calculator weight calculator incite then. I just assumed "Its abandoned water, right?" Wrong. enormously wrong.

When you get into this hobby, you think virtually fish. You think not quite plants. You think virtually the absolute CO2 levels. You rarely think very nearly the structural integrity of your joists. But if you ignore the math, gravity will eventually introduce itself to you in the most costly showing off possible. If you want to avoid a literal indoor swimming pool in your vivacious room, you habit to understand how to calculate the full weight of your setup aquarium. Its not just approximately the glass and the liquid. It's the total of its parts. And those parts are heavy.

Lets be honest. We all eyeball things. We look at a 20-gallon tank and think, "I can carry that." Sure, empty, its a breeze. But water is a dense, unforgiving mistress. One gallon of lighthearted water weighs approaching 8.34 pounds. Saltwater?