Wheels under tank support - smart or stupid?

[Beer]

You did mention that you got two locking casters.

 

I just looked it up, I recalled the Nuvo 20 having more than 15" of depth (thought it was closer to 20) and I missed the fact that you were mounting the casters to IKEA furniture.

You are going to have the tank sitting somewhere between 34-36" high on pivot points close to 12" apart. I wish I checked that before.

I think that the base of that cabinet is built as a torsion box, which is very strong and conserves quite a bit of material, or it is particle board. The downside is that there is not much material for hardware to bite in to if it is torsion box, or not very dense if it is particle board, so the screws will tear out easily. They do have a caster version of that shelf, but the shelf sits on metal brackets with the casters outside the width of the cabinet. The height to width ratio is not ideal, but it is not overly narrow for the height.  As long as you are not pushing from the top or moving quickly, you should be okay if you still decide to put it on casters. If you are going to be moving it more than a couple of inches, move one end first, pivoting around the other end so you are moving it lengthwise.

 

You can always try mounting the casters and have you or your husband sit on it and try to move it, see how it behaves, keeping in mind that a tank of water will surge back and fourth if a wheel catches, hangs up momentarily, or takes a little more force to get moving than anticipated. You would definitely want to drain the tank down before moving it, corals can deal with being exposed to air for a little bit. You would also want to make sure your rock structure is very secure. Moving over those dividers will take some practice to do smoothly, if that is possible.

 

You May be safer building a base out of two layers of 3/4" or a single layer of 1" plywood and securing the cabinet to that. You could also make it a little wider for stability (use some base trim to pretty it up). I would try mounting them and having someone sit on it first before moving forward.

 

Also be aware that the filled tank will exceed the total per shelf capacity of the cabinet, which I am sure has a wide safety margin, but I do not know how that translates to the entire structure being top loaded and moved.
 

I wish I looked at the shelf and tank dimensions earlier and brought some of these points up before you went and bought the casters.

Let us know what you decide to mount the casters and try moving it with someone on there. I don't know the actual construction of that particular cabinet, But IKEA is not fond of utilizing solid wood for most applications due to shipping weight, raw material cost, and environmental cost of harvesting far more trees to build a product that would be far less resource intensive utilizing particle board, torsion boxes, cardboard cores, or similar processes.

[oneart]

On 3/2/2018 at 9:27 PM, Beer said:

 

Thanks for all the thought you put into this Beer. I think the cabinet is particle board but seems to be rather sturdy, with a top and side two inches thick. This is not the most recent model and is a little thicker than Ikea's newer version which they made a little thinner. After contemplating this awhile, the wheels still seem a better bet than gliders since the gliders won't make it over the room dividers when it comes time to move it. I will indeed drain it down at least half way before moving. 

 

So, also after looking at the wheels and considering the fact that they could all swivel in one direction, I think what we will do is order two more wheels that are the same size but that don't swivel and also have locks. Four swiveling wheels make me nervous. Of course, I'll have to wait a little longer and this is another 16 dollar shipping fee, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. Also, there are bolts on the bottom that hold the shelves together and need to be worked around. Therefore, we'll move them in a little along the long side so that we can bolt them right through the bottom piece rather than just screw them in. That way they won't tear out. This is a lousy picture but if you look closely you can see the thickness of the shelf. We would set them about where the wheel is now, and bolt it through. 

[Beer]

Through bolting with washers would be a much better plan than screws.