I have a tank that is longer at the top than the bottom how do I figure the cubic feet of the container?

Answer 1

Bottom + top divided by 2, times width times height

Answer 2

Sounds like you might have is the three dimensional version of a trapezoid with the longer side up. Check out :

http://www.mathleague.com/help/geometry/polygons.htm

for some pix of a trapezoid. If that's what you have, measure the shorter length (l), width (s), and depth (d) of the tank and multiply the three numbers together V' = l X w X d V' is the volume of the tank if the longer top were equal in length to the shorter bottom. But it isn't; so we have to add in that extra volume caused by the longer length on top.

If the longer length extends the same amount on both ends of the tank over the length of the shorter bottom, the solution is easy. Just measure the extension of the longer length on one end beyond the short length. For example, if the longer length is 10 in and the shorter is 8 in, the extension on one side is 10 - 8 = 2 in divided by 2 = 1 in because we just need the extension (e) on one end, not both ends. Then multiply e X w X d = v; where v is the extra bit of volume due to the overhang of the longer side.

V' + v = total volume of your fish tank. (Make sure you measure in feet if you want your answer to be in cubic feet.)

If you draw out your tank's profile, you should see that the extra volume from the sum of extra volumes at either end is nothing more or less than a box. And the volume of a box is just the muliple of the three sides width, length, and depth.

Answer 3

Imagine the tank as a rectagle with a triangle at each end. Figure the area of the rectangle and each triangle and add them together.

Let's say it is 14 long on top, 10 on bottom, 3 high, and 3 deep.
Don't worry about the extra 2 on each side at top at first. You'd have a rectangle 10x3x3, or 90 cubic feet. That leaves 2 triangles with dimensions of 2x3x3....of course you could figure the area as 1/2base x height, but it would be easier to imagine combining those 2 triangles to make a box 2x3x3 for another 18 cu. ft.

Hope that helps.

Answer 4

fill it with water, then pour that water into a container that has the same size top and bottom, and is large enough to hold all the water. then measure the height of the water line and compute the volume by multiplying that height by the length and width of the new container. That will be the volume of the first container.

Answer 5

V = h(B1 + B2 + sqrt[B1B2])/3

V = Height * (Area of Top + Area of Bottom + sqrt(B1 * B2))/3

It depends if you are talking about trapezoid like figure.

http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/formulas/faq.pyramid.html