240g in house with crawlspace..advice?

aquarob

aquarob

I give up!
Jan 1, 2006
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Hey all, as some of you may already know, im looking to setup a 240g aquarium next year, and im wanting to get everything slowly setup throughout this year in preparations.

This aquarium measures 96" long, 25" wide, and 24" tall. 8ft long tank basically. I am having a stand built from the manufacturer as I do not have the skill or equipment to build my own. No canopy, just glass tops. Now, without getting too specific, we are looking at about 2400lbs of weight spread over just over 16 sq.ft. of floor. My home has a crawlspace under it. My question is, will the floor joists support this weight without being reinforced? I wouldnt think there would be a problem with 15 people standing in my livingroom,lets take an average weight of 160lbs per person, thats 2400lbs of weight. Granted they wouldnt be all crowded into one spot though. I really hope I dont need to hire a contracter to install support beams or something, as I can only imagine how badly I would get raped for that. :thud:

Also, keep in mind that I have only one room (LR) thats large enough to do place this tank in, and I do not have a basement, or I would gladly put it there. Any advice would be appreciated, so long as you have some idea what im talking about of course. Thanks in advance.
 
I am not a structural engineer but a plumber in new home construction, I see alot in the building aspects. IMO, I would take no chances, because when they build a house they build to minimum code. Here are 2 I think good options to support your floor.

1) Double up on your joices, that means nail or screw another 2x6, 2x8 or 2x10, (whichever size you have) to each joice. It may be difficult to nail with out using a nailgun. So basically you will have 2 joice every 12" center or so.

2) I think that this option may be the better one. Run some 2x6 horizontally under your joice in the opposite direction and support them vertical to another horizontal 2x6 lying on the concrete floor. I hope I am not confusing you, basically you are kinda building a load support just under where the tank will be. They don't even have to be 2x6, you can use 2x4's.

good luck.
 
There are several things you should check Are the joist under the floor running perpenticular to the tank or parallel. Are you putting the tank against an inside wall or an out side wall.

If you are placing the tank over joist that run perpinticular r to the tank you will have 6 joists supporting the tank under the floor and it the tank is against a load bearing wall there should not be any issues (I am not an engineer)

If the joist will be running parallel with the tank you will have the majority of the weight on 1 joist in this situation I would beef up the framing below the floor this can be easily accomplished. I would put some 2*6 under the tank spanning 3 joist running perpinticular to the tank every 16" and support the on blocks use shims to get a snug fit and there should not be any sagging.
 
I'd like to see a picture of your crawl space under where the tank will be. As said above, if its sitting parallel to the floor joists, you absolutely "must" design a support in the flooring system.

If the tank is perpendicular to the joists, but does not have a column or support directly underneath, I would still beef up the structure somehow.

Depending on how much room you have in the crawl, I'd build a 2x8 header (two 2x8's sandwiched together with 1/2-inch plywood between them) directly under the tank which could be supported by treated 4x4 posts going into the ground in the crawl space. Same theory as support posts for an outdoor deck. ...dig down a couple feet and pour a concrete footer (pad) which supports the header jacks (the 4x4's). This is a pretty easy job for a contractor and I don't really suspect it will cost much money. Search for "deck builders/ re-modelers" in your local paper, etc.
 
I would have said as Mrditty did. Anyway you do it, it won't hurt to have a little extra underneath. If your crawlspace floor is not concrete, you obviously have to have something to support any bracing going from the floor to the ceiling. If the space isn't too high ("crawl" "space" doesn't infer too much) you could use cinder blocks too.
 
It would be placed along an interior wall, and without looking, i would guess just from the layout of my house, that the joists would be running vertically, with the tank sitting horizontally, so i should have multiple joists under the tank. If that be the case (i will crawl down there and look later) will it be ok or do i still need to have it reinforced?

Edit: My home was built in the late 50s, 1958 or so I think. As they say, they dont build em like they used to. I looked in my attic to see what materials they used there, and they appeared to all be 4x8 beams on the "floor" of the attic and 2x8s for the crossbeams that actually hold the roof up. Assuming they used the same 4x8 beams in the floor (again I will check later, i just showered =P) I should be good to go no? Those are some pretty thick pieces of lumber...
 
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4x8's are big, but if spaced 24-inch on center, you've still got a load issue.

Proximity to an interior wall doesn't mean much. Non-load bearing interior walls need no additional support underneath. I would worry that the tank is in the middle of a span of joists with no load bearing support in the form of a brick or cinderblock pier or steel column. There's no way to know this unless you crawl underneath and look. In 1958 they did tend to use large chunks of wood, but high tech bracing for single family homes wasn't really happening.

If you stand in the middle of the floor where the tank is going to be sitting, do things in the room shake if you jump up and down? In my house, I walk across the floor and things in the kitchen and on shelves rattle around.
 
Galaxie said:
Proximity to an interior wall doesn't mean much. Non-load bearing interior walls need no additional support underneath. I would worry that the tank is in the middle of a span of joists with no load bearing support in the form of a brick or cinderblock pier or steel column.
Click to expand...

Ditto.
 
I am not a builder, but it sound like alot of great advise has been offered. I will add that a pole from the floor of the crawl space to a beam of the floor.
 
I just put up a 75 and my hubby insisted on adding extra support under the floor.
In discussing this with folks here, someone mentioned that the building codes generally call for floors to be able to support 50 to 60 lbs per square foot (if I have this wrong..feel free to correct)
So at a footprint of 8' x 2' at 50 lbs per square foot could be expected to hold 800 lbs, and you will be significantly exceeding that.
Hubby made a beam of 2 2x6 on edge and used floor jacks. Not sure if they make floor jacks for crawl spaces or not, Galaxie does describe a good way too, depending on what you have to work with.
 
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