falling through my floor?

[draco]

so then.... its good if it is concrete, and if it isnt. will i find out the hard way?

[demon666]

trix must be an engineer cuse i didnt understand a damn word he was saying other then concrete = more then goood enough....... the tank alone with out live rock and sand will weigh in at 900 lbs figure in minimum 90lbs lr 90lbs ls + water + fish + corals ( i know the last 2 dont weigh much but it will still add up even if it is only a few ounces) + stand + sump + fudge material (few more pounds of sand and lr) your are going to be looking @ roughly 1200lbs give or take a few factors..... on a concrete floor that should be nothing.... if it is a wood floor i would sudgest puting it on a weight bearing wall like an outside wall just because the floor joists are much stronger at that point as compaired to the middel of the room

[BCOrchidGuy]

Would you let 4 large grown adult men stand in the area where you'd put your tank? If you'd let the 4 250lbs men stand there then a 90 gallon tank shouldn't be a problem.

Doug

[andsoitgoes]

intersting article about all of this basically says "Yes, 4 250 lb men can stand in the same place at one time, even jump up and down - but having them there in the same spot for years causes a wear in the structural integrity that the floor was never designed for"

http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article28.html

As I've been freaking out about this, seeing that on one side of my room I have currently 160g of water dispursed in a very, very odd way (tank stand that displaces the water upwards rather than lengthwise) and have approximately 100g sitting there plus another 60g next to it. Needless to say, it's a scary thought and I am seriously contemplating a move of some sort - however, if you look at the weight of a water bed (often 4000+ lbs) and the thought that these floors were designed for that - then there's another story entirely. And I think I like to use that to assure myself I'm not going to drown in fish poop

[draco]

that all makes perfect sense. and i have filled and set my rock into my new tank and started my sump. cool stuff

[Dave C]

If you don't like the "4 men standing" analogy, how about your fridge, or a freezer? Load those up with food and if they're upright that's a very small footprint & a lot of weight that never moves. Couple that with the large adult that is constantly standing in front of the fridge choosing a snack and you've got even more weight. A water bed is another good example and the average weight is greater then 1,500lbs. Then tack on the weight of the couple sleeping on it and you're up to a good ton. Mind you, it's spread over a large area, but the weight is constant and therefore comparable.

For all of the threads I've read asking about the dangers of floors giving way, I've read none about it actually happening. I'm sure it does, but there's a lot of other things that happen much more frequently that people don't worry about.

[Farrmanchu]

I've got around 70 Gallons, and 100+ lbs of rock on a smallish footprint (4x2 foot). My house is around 100 years old with foundation problems, but the tank is fine.

[andsoitgoes]

The problem with looking at things like a fridge, bathtub, washer, etc is that when the house was designed, the engineers knew "Hey, this is where the fridgei s going to go" and planned for the extra weight.

I'm guessing they didn't look at the bedroom and said "Hmm, this person might just put over 1000 lbs of water here. Let's do some super reinforcement of the floors"

As for the rock displacement, it doesn't fully displace the same amount of water, the link above has a bit of a calculation as to how that works - because of the space the rock itself occupies. Here's an explanation:

"I added 210 pounds of rock to my aquarium so now my aquarium setup weighs 210 pounds more."

• In the above example, when you added the 210 lbs of rock it took up space that was previously occupied by approximately 1.5 cubic feet of water. So you've really only added 116 lbs (the "buoyant rock weight") to the total weight.

Again, like Seahorse_Fanatic said, it's something that's talked about but is never something that anyone has actually heard of. On the same note, so is a heater exploding and turning your entire tank into very expensive soup, it's just a matter of how much risk are you willing to take.

-- and saying that, I'm planning on doubling my home insurance policy

[Funky_Fish14]

Originally Posted by BCOrchidGuy

Would you let 4 large grown adult men stand in the area where you'd put your tank? If you'd let the 4 250lbs men stand there then a 90 gallon tank shouldn't be a problem.

Doug

If 4 250lb men couldnt stand in that space then there are likely some serious safety code violations

As Trix mentioned, the best thing you can do is contact a structural engineer, however in all likelyhood your tank will probably be fine there.

Chris

[scub steve]

i had a 90 gal tank in my apartment 2 story with no problems and my place is about 75 years old