100gal on mid level

[lastlight]

What nobody building a tank wants to address is the fact that floors can really vary. We treat a floor as some standard thing when in reality some bounce without a tank on them! Some floor joists are merely 2x8s or whatever...new homes are engineered joists and I think are far stronger.

[bauder1986]

well, if your overly worried about the floor caving in. Go with a large footprint, and for the base of your stand, make it completely flat, the whole bottom of the stand touching the floor, not just the edges and the main post. Its a trick that is used on the rigs to move the 120000+ lbs worth of equipment, use as many tires as possible to spread all the weight equally all over the place. So if you go with you original dimensions (60" long, 24"deep) thats 1440 square inches of floor space used and about 1100 lbs of weight thats 1.3lbs per sq inch . Not a whole lot of wieght to be supported when you use all the floor space you can to hold the wieght.

[kien]

Here's my thread when I asked this question :-)

my thread

[JDigital]

Originally Posted by lastlight

What nobody building a tank wants to address is the fact that floors can really vary. We treat a floor as some standard thing when in reality some bounce without a tank on them! Some floor joists are merely 2x8s or whatever...new homes are engineered joists and I think are far stronger.

We've got 2x12" Wood I-beams spaced 19-20" apart.. to be honest, I haven't seen this style of beam before.. I'll try and get a pic.

[sphelps]

If your floor can't support that tank you need to get the heck out of the house. You're talking about less than 1000lbs over more than 8 square feet which is about 120lbs/sqft which also happens to be less than the pressure applied by the average person. I love how we'll cram 30-50 people in our homes or stock our fridges to the max or even take a bath without breaking a sweat but when it comes to a fish tank the rules all of a sudden change. Has anyone actually ever heard of a fish tank falling through the floor? I've seen so many tanks in all kinds of places and yet never once even heard of a tank falling through.

Call up an engineer I'm sure he'll get a good laugh out of later at the bar after you've paid his bill. Or better yet give me a call I could use the money

All floors are different but if it falls into any typical general standard you're good. Sure if it's rotting from the inside you probably shouldn't do it but like I said if it can't support it move and move quickly

[bauder1986]

Originally Posted by sphelps

if your floor can't support that tank you need to get the heck out of the house. You're talking about less than 1000lbs over more than 8 square feet which is about 120lbs/sqft which also happens to be less than the pressure applied by the average person. I love how we'll cram 30-50 people in our homes or stock our fridges to the max or even take a bath without breaking a sweat but when it comes to a fish tank the rules all of a sudden change. Has anyone actually ever heard of a fish tank falling through the floor? I've seen so many tanks in all kinds of places and yet never once even heard of a tank falling through.

Call up an engineer i'm sure he'll get a good laugh out of later at the bar after you've paid his bill. Or better yet give me a call i could use the money

All floors are different but if it falls into any typical general standard you're good. Sure if it's rotting from the inside you probably shouldn't do it but like i said if it can't support it move and move quickly

+1

[toxic111]

it depends on how old the house is. By my quick calc's you are looking at putting 90psf on a floor that is usually designed for around 40-50psf.

Now, if your span is less than 10' and you are fairly close to supports (beams) you might be good.

An engineer would be your best bet to confirm what you can do, it should only be a couple bills to have one look into it.

BTW, you might never have a problem, I have seen waterbeds over 2x8 joists.

A larger tank might work, you just have to see what the final loading will be. If you can get things to under 75psf I wouldn't worry about it.

[lastlight]

I think a little caution in general here is a good thing. Your party leaves sometime that night/early morning. Your bath sits on a floor that is built differently than the rest of the house.

I'm not at all concerned about it going through a floor. I don't like my reef to wobble or bounce is all. And long-term, the effects on the floor are measurable. I've read a lot of large tank threads over the years and yeah no one has put a tank through the floor but some have actually measured the floor sag. I didn't want my floor to sag either.

[lorenz0]

See the tank won't be held up by 4-6 joist, but parrellel with 2 of them. Thats my problem. If the joists were running the other way on the house i would have no concern, but i have never seen someone run a tank or confirm it will be ok for 100-120gal tank. Otherwise Like i said i will just re-design a 60gal and work with that since i know people are running 55gals without any issues.

Here are some pictures of what i am dealing with.

i want the tank placed where the black couch is


my "joists" which are about 2 feet apart


Another idea of what the joist looks like

[JDigital]

^^ damn, never saw those cross beams in between when I looked.. haha