240g in house with crawlspace..advice?

[Sploke]

I like spartans idea, and you could probably accomplish it yourself for less than 100 bucks. That wouldn't add that much more to the cost of everything.

 

[Galaxie]

I've got a 180 and had to reinforce the floor underneath, there was about a 4 foot crawl space underneath, heres a quick drawing of what i did.
The support beams are 4X4s same as the "goes across floor" beams. The actual floor beams are 2X16s and the tank sits on about 3 or 4 of them with probably at least 6 feet on either side. HTH

Wow! 2x16's ! Is it a 4 story house or what? Anyhow, thanks for the drawing. :thm:

 

[Native American]

So, with even with what MudDogs is saying, I should still reinforce the floor? What he said makes sense to me, but I also see the counterpoints too. Im confused. LOL

I just dont want to spend a truckload of money before I even get to setup the tank, as if thats not gonna be expensive enough eh?

Reinforce the floor. My gun safe weighs only 550 lbs. empty, and after sitting in a corner (one of the strongest areas of the house when speaking floor strength) for 3 years, I had nearly 1" of sag occur. Easy to notice when we were moving. A 240g tank and 3 average sized fire-resistant gun safes (23 cu ft interior) have about the same footprint, but the aquarium will weigh much more than those 3 safes hands down.

A gun safe will not suffer much from the sag. An aquarium is different! It will have its wooden support stand flex in response to the slow floor movement over the years. This will put stress on the seams and glass. The smart money is to stress the floor to take the nearly 3,000 pounds you're going to apply to it, and make that floor, structurally speaking, behave like a concrete slab. The house can take the sag (just have a foundation specialist jack and shim if it is pier and beam), but the aquarium cannot.

That's the reason I do not allow renters to put a fish tank or water furniture into my 1920's brownstone. It's easy to have a water catastrophe with big volumes of water due to the immense weight in a small area.

v/r, N-A

 

[StreetCypher]

Wow! 2x16's ! Is it a 4 story house or what? Anyhow, thanks for the drawing. :thm:

oops, thats a typo, they're 2X10s, i was thinking 16" apart from each other

 

[Native American]

I didn't even think about 16" on centers. I was thinking the same thing as Galaxie...16" joists? Wow, that's some kind of HOUSE.

Spartan's idea is a good one. It's one of the ways a pro will strengthen parts of a structure prior to any leveling work.

v/r, N-A

 

[aquarob]

Thanks for all the help fellas. I will work on a way to get the reinforcement done without the wife raising hell. It was hard enough talking her into letting me get the tank to start with...hehe. THIS should be a blast.

 

[imhandy2]

Keep us posted on your progress. Have fun.

Terry.