130 Gallon Set up and weight?

[CherylMcKay]

Originally Posted by ktsalt

Does anyone on this website have 120 gallon or larger tank setup in their living room??

Mine is 165 Gallons in the living room. It is on the outside wall across the main support beam in the house. The part that worried me is that it is not across multiple floor joists it is running with them. That is why we decided to put it across the beam.

[daplatapus]

Here's an interesting read on floor loading:
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article28.html

Ultimately, you need someone (eg. an engineer) to look at your specific set of circumstances to answer your question. Just because I was told I'm good to go for my 210 gallon in my dining room upstairs with no needed floor modification doesn't mean everyone can.
There are ton's of factors to consider, only some of which include:
What is the span of the floor joists in that room?
What are those joists made of? TJI's, Fir, Spruce, Hemlock... these all have different loading parameters
What is the floor joist spacing? 16", 19.2", 24"
What load are those joists already carrying?
There may even be a possibility to find out what size footing there is under your foundation. Tons of info needed to make a proper and educated decision on a tank that size.

[ktsalt]

Great article you have posted. I will consider all angles before setting this up.

[Simons]

130Gal is close to 500L which is 500 kg of water alone (about 1100lbs) plus tank weight and rocks, stand and equipment I would say your estimate of 1500lbs is pretty close.

1500Lbs in a fairly small area is a significant amount of weight so it would really depend on several factors; age of your home (materials have changed) and where you are going to put the tank.

If it is going to be against a wall I would say you would be fine because the floor Joists would intersect the wall which would be the strongest point on the floor.

If you wanted to do a room divider tank then you may have to look at direction of joists as you would want to be perpendicular to their longitudinal direction so you would 'catch' as many as possible. If your place has a central support beam running down the middle of your basement, they usually have at least two telescoping support posts, so if you are close to one of those you would likely be okay. The standard support posts are designed for 5K lbs of load so there is some safety factor.

One more thing to consider, if you have a rock counter top in your kitchen (granite, marble, quartz) can add a significant amount of load. We had to install a dedicated engineering post into a friends house when he put in his 300 Gal room divider tank because he also had granite counter tops in his kitchen.

[kien]

Originally Posted by Simons

300 Gal room divider tank because he also had granite counter tops in his kitchen.

300g ROOM DIVIDER?!?! wow, now that's something I'd like to see

so did we ever figure out what colour your house is?? (the OP that is)

[FishyFishy!]

I wonder if he knows that this was from October 2012 lol.

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by Simons

130Gal is close to 500L .

or about 2080 cups
or about 99840 teaspoons
or about 1040 pints
or about 11,809,200 drops

thats alot of drops

[FishyFishy!]

Originally Posted by reefwars

or about 2080 cups
or about 99840 teaspoons
or about 1040 pints
or about 11,809,200 drops

thats alot of drops

How much volume is in a drop????

[kien]

Originally Posted by FishyFishy!

I wonder if he knows that this was from October 2012 lol.

it doesn't matter, we still want to know what colour his house is!

[slakker]

Also consider the footprint of the tank/stand and how the weight will be distributed. If it's on a metal stand which usually have 4 feet of about 4-6 square inches, all that weight will be put onto 4 high PSI points.

Or think of it in another way... 1300 lbs is about 7 to 8 people. If your tank's foot print is say 4'x2' that's 8 square feet, then you get 8 people to stand in that area, does your floor squeak and squawk under that pressure?