Makes perfect sense but now my question is.. Have you ever taken apart a seastar tank? Is it a floating bottom? I can't tell without taking the trim off.

never taken apart a seastar tank before, but most (80% i would say) of the tanks I've taken apart with trims are infact built with the side panels sitting on the bottom panel. So there is a high chance that the seastars were built the same way.

I'm getting confused lol so tanks with trim are floating bottoms and should not be on foam? Or, It sounds to me that if the sides sit ON the bottom glass that the bottom is not floating?

haha ok, so tanks that have trims are all considered floating bottom.

out of all the tanks ive taken apart (AGA/Oceanic) majority of them were built with the side panels sitting on top of the bottom. That would explain why they needed the trim on the bottom.

In other words, most of the tanks built with 4 panels on top of the bottom are usually built with trims thus making them floating. The reason is because you are not supposed to support the whole bottom of tanks built this way only the perimeters of the base

Interesting, as I'm checking the bottom of my tank, I see it's leaking from somewhere above the foam. Gonna be an interesting Xmas morning for me!!

Oh, no!:(

Mitch

I had my seastar tank on foam, and they were the ones who recommended it was put on foam and they even suggested pink.

now the biggest problem I see is if you are using a home made stand or even a pre-made stand on an uneven surface. once the foam is compressed it won't keep going so what happens is it will conform to the stand and transfer through any irregularities. it will make up for very slight ones but not for larger ones and they will eventually telescope through and have there effects.

I don't know if your stand was wood or metal but, I really hate it when I see people using wood to build frames for large tanks, as no matter how good you build it wood will flex and wood also will compress at different rates due to grain structure and knots, so in fact you can have a perfect wood frame compress at different rates causing unevenness and tank cracking.

Steve

so far my story is that it's a leaking bulkhead, accumulating water in the bottom trim. It's dripping back into the sump, so that's a good thing. Right? :)

The foam on all tanks should only be max 4" wide around the perimeter of the tank, allowing the center of the bottom glass to float.

So what if you have a tank that has the trim and you have holes drilled down the center of the tank for returns?

Not sure if the tank has a floating bottom yet but with all the rock that is going to go in it and sand how do you support the glass so it does not break from where the holes are?