Tank weight

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daisydog

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Dec 19, 2002
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Is the Weight of my Tank to Much?

I have a 135g tank that I have always kept in the basement, on a cement floor. I am moving and thinking about putting the tank on the main floor. I figure I have around 1000 lbs. of water, plus gravel, 30 gal sump, CO2 tank, filters, oak stand and hood, and the tank is a glass Oceanic tank that is really heavy. I figure I probably have 2000 lbs. or so in total. Is this too much for the floor? Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks.
 
Make sure the floor joists are perpendicular to the lenght or the tank, otherwise even a small tank will cause serious damage. The width and lenght will give you the area the weight is distributed over, a long/shallow tank will be better than a tall/narrow one. Talk with you homeowners ins. and make arraingements for an inspection-if something happens and they determine that you overloaded the structure, you will be stuck with the damage and may be looking for ins as well. HTH Steve
 
There are lots of things to consider when placing a tank > 100G on a non-concrete floor.

1) Older houses are generally better. The saying "they don't make them like they used to" is true.

2) Try and place it directly above a crossbeam or load supporting beam.

3) Keep in mind that fresh water weighs in at 8.34 lbs per gallon, and any gravel / rock you have will usually weigh more than that per gallon.

4) If unable to place it directly over a load supporting beam, try to place it as close to a wall as possible. The more you place a tank to the center of a room, the more potential you have at having a problem with the supports of the floor bowing and potentially collapsing / breaking down the road.

5) As karfixer said, make sure the tank is perpendicular to the joists supporting the floor rather than parallel. This will distribute the weight better.

If you're in doubt at all, hire a building inspector; you can find them in the Yellow Pages. They do house appraisals to ensure that you don't buy a lemon, and usually for a reduced fee they will come check out your house for structural soundness. A friend of mine had one come look at his living room for $50 (Canadian) to ensure that a 180g was okay for it.
 
I agree with karfixer. Make SURE you put the tank with the floor joists running perpendicular to the tank. You might also hire somebody to put steel reinforcements in the floor under where ANY furniture is going to be placed, esp. pianos, fish tanks, big beds, and sleeper-sofas. Of course, if you have slab construction, this shouldn't be a big deal at all, unless there is something wrong with the concrete....

Also, a fish tank (or piano or whatever) that size will warp a joist/subfloor setup, no matter how much reinforcement you put under it. You will be in for repair work before you sell the house if you ever decide to do so, and jacking a floor up is hard work.

Be sure to tell your insurance company that you have something that heavy, and also be aware that older houses are generally not insured against water damage, so if the tank breaks, oh, well....

Good luck!
 
One more thing that pinballqueen reminded me of:

If you decide to reinforce the floor where the tank is, put the reinforcements in BEFORE you fill the tank up.

There's a good article on this somewhere on the net, I'll try to find it for you.
 
Thanks for all the responses. They are really helpful. We are building a new house but it is not built yet - I'm just planning ahead. I suppose I could talk to the builder to see how much it would cost to reinforce the floor, maybe with some additional sister joists in the "fish tank room". Any other thoughts about what I might want to talk to the builder about?
 
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