Does A Tank Have To Be Absolutely Level?

[Aussie_Dog]

The only problem I've come across so far in the past 2 1/2 weeks is that my 60gal All-Glass tank seems to be "off" a little. It's not by much (I think... but what do I know?), but the water level one one side of the tank is about a half inch lower (maybe less; I can never find a ruler or angle level/finder when I need it) than the water level on the other end of the tank. The whole tank is 48" from end to end (and is 13" narrow, and roughly 20"-22" tall). Could this be bad, putting too much stress on the one end of the tank, forcing it to break someday in the near future? How can I fix this? I'm not sure if it's the tank, stand, or floor. The tank is in the basement, in the family room, on a carpetted floor (a stone/cement sort of floor is underneath). The tank is currently cycling, so if there's something I can do to fix this, I can do it when I do the big water change at the end of the cycle.

This is the tank and stand I have, though the stand is black.
http/www.pets-warehouse.com/Vpasp/shopexd.asp?id=257676

 

[Tolak]

Being out of level that much will put more stress on the seams, and could lead to leaking, perhaps severely. Shim between the floor and stand with solid wood shims, or strips of wood.

If the tank is cycling you could drain it, keeping the filter media wet, level it, and replace the water with the proper amount of ammonia. This should not affect your cycle at all.

For a quick reference, the average adult male's thumb is about 1" wide so use that or fractions of that for a quick guesstimate. I used it all the time long ago to figure if platy fry were 1", the minimum my local shop would take them.

 

[Aussie_Dog]

Where can I get wood shims and such? I'm not a hardware kind of person (I can set up a cat tree that just needs screws put in, lol), so I'm completely clueless. I've never even heard of a wood shim. What does it do to help level out the water? Is it flexible or soft or something?

 

[Aussie_Dog]

Well, I just found a ruler, so I did some measuring, and I think the tank isn't quite the problem. The black rim or border or whatever it's called seems to be the reason the water level looks off. The rim on the one end is a little higher than the rim on the other end. The glass itself measures right (the water level on both ends came to the same measurement from the bottom of the tank to the water level). However, I noticed that the stand seems to be leaning forward, by as much as a half inch (well, a full centimetre, which converts to just short of a half inch). I measured the distance from the wall to the stand, on both the bottom and the top, and the top has the further distance (therefore, it must be leaning). The water level shows the leaning, too (the water level at the front of the tank isn't as noticable as the water level at the back of the tank on that one end). I really want to find the leveler thing that's around somewhere, as it can give me a real idea on what the actual angle measurements are.

Also found out that the water level isn't off by "a half inch," it's actually 1/4 inch. Is it still something to worry about?