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180g Tank Placement

Started by Guest_bills79jeep_* , Jun 12 2007 11:34 AM

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22 replies to this topic

#1 Guest_bills79jeep_*

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Posted 12 June 2007 - 11:34 AM

I am going to be getting a 180 gallon tank this summer so I can keep some of my favorite natives. The issue is that I am kind of worried about the weight of the tank. 2000+ lbs of water, rock, and stand in the living room worries me. From what I have seen online placing the tank on a load bearing wall perpendicular to the floor joists is the best. Have any of you taken an special precautions with bigger/ heavier setups? Anyone had a tank fall into the basement :shock:

?

Looks like a great forum here, glad to be a member.

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#2 Guest_troutperch beeman_*

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Posted 12 June 2007 - 02:46 PM

I am going to be getting a 180 gallon tank this summer so I can keep some of my favorite natives. The issue is that I am kind of worried about the weight of the tank. 2000+ lbs of water, rock, and stand in the living room worries me. From what I have seen online placing the tank on a load bearing wall perpendicular to the floor joists is the best. Have any of you taken an special precautions with bigger/ heavier setups? Anyone had a tank fall into the basement ?

Looks like a great forum here, glad to be a member.

I had to cut a hole in the floor of the closet behind my 350 gl. Then squeezed though into the crawl space. I then dug three holes about 2 feet deep with a hammer and poured three concrete pads a little wider then the tank. I then made 2- 2x8 beams, 1 for the front and 1 for the back of the tank, then jacked the floor about a half an inch, placed concrete blocks between the beam and the pad and let the floor back down. That was 4 years ago and it is still holding strong.
Herschel

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#3 Guest_hmt321_*

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Posted 12 June 2007 - 02:58 PM

what are the dims of the room?
what are your floor joists made of
how old is the house

if you can produce a drawing showing room size and the placement of your tank we can make a better determination on if you need more bracing

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#4 Guest_bills79jeep_*

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Posted 12 June 2007 - 03:12 PM

Well, it is a condo, and we are renting it so I don't think that they would appreciate any "upgrades" I deemed necessary for their property.

The room is 17x18, and from what I understand the bigger the room the longer the floor joists the less stout they are. Unfortunately I have not moved in yet, so I can't even measure to see how large the joists are. 2x6? 2x8? 2x10? Not sure what is standard. It is new, less than 2 yrs old.

Thanks guys.

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#5 Guest_hmt321_*

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Posted 12 June 2007 - 04:44 PM

are you on the 2nd floor?

if there is a crawl space you can easily add support that would not be noticeable.

local building codes should be regularly available at your city hall. i would be willing to bet that the joists are 2 x 10's or 2 x 12's

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#6 Guest_rnbwdarter_*

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Posted 12 June 2007 - 07:38 PM

I had a 150 at my parents house on a non-loadbearing wall. In the crawlspace we used cement blocks on the ground with 2 metal floor jacks and a 2x8(?) supporting the joists the whole length of the tank. You just need to check every once in a while to see that the cement blocks aren't settling into the ground. It worked well for us. This is a nice temporary but potentially long-term fix and doesn't require any modification to the structure of your house or pouring concrete in tight spaces.

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#7 Guest_bills79jeep_*

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Posted 13 June 2007 - 07:36 AM

The living room is over the basement, and the basement is finished, so I think that adding supports is not really an option. All of these do seem like good ideas for the future though. I just hate to put the tank in the basement, but I also don't want the living room tank to end up in the basement.

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#8 Guest_rnbwdarter_*

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Posted 13 June 2007 - 04:20 PM

What about a couple of "decorative" columns? I've seen some nice ones for sale, they are solid wood, even one underneath a central floor joist would help support the tank. Of course, it would just depend on the aesthetics of the basement. Just an idea.

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#9 Guest_Irate Mormon_*

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Posted 13 June 2007 - 04:23 PM

FWIW, you probably would not see a catastrophic failure of the floor, but you would see signs that something is amiss, like cracks in the wall and doors that don't line up any more.

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#10 Guest_bills79jeep_*

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Posted 14 June 2007 - 08:49 AM

All of this has been very helpful. Moral of the story, some type of bracing will be necessary. I am handy enough, it is really a question of access to the places I would need to brace and inobtrusiveness to the existing condo.

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#11 Guest_nativecajun_*

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Posted 17 June 2007 - 08:10 AM

What I woould do. Here goes. I would take two sheets of 3/4 inch plywood and glue and screw them together. Put this under the tank stand to distribute the weight over a larger area. IE instead of single legs hitting the floor you would have dispersed the weight over a large area. Unless the stand you have is a cabinet type stand that has a full botton runner front back and sides. These runners I speak of is the very bottom of the stand the part that sits on the floor. If they are flat I would place the longest on a 90 degree angle to the joists so it is sitting on as many floor joist possible. Usually joist run the shortest span of a room. If you do not know go in the basement. I think you said you have a basement. And either use a stud finder or just knock on the drywall on the ceiling to find the joist. Either that or look for supporting beams. if you have a beam that runs lets say paralel to the front wall or side wall of your upper room the joist will run from that beam to the front or side wall (typically). Hope I did not confuse you. I built the crazy things for a while that is why I have a bum back now.

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#12 Guest_bullhead_*

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Posted 18 June 2007 - 08:40 AM

Others have noted it here, but it is important to place the tank perpedicular to the joists, across as many as possilbe. Also, it helps to place along/above supporting walls. With this kind of weight, it might be best to get a structural engineer's advice.

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#13 Guest_edbihary_*

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Posted 18 June 2007 - 10:14 AM

With this kind of weight, it might be best to get a structural engineer's advice.

If it holds no more water than a waterbed, then any floor in sound condition should be able to support it.

Here is a good article on structural support for aquariums:
http://badmanstropic.../article28.html

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#14 Guest_bills79jeep_*

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Posted 18 June 2007 - 10:43 AM

Thanks for all the great info again. I had previously seen that article, and that is why I wanted some imput from people who have 1st hand experience.

Since bracing is most likely out of the question because it is a rental property, the basement seems like the safest and most prudent place to put the tank.

If I do decide to place it upstairs, I will probably want to know some specifics on how you all braced your floors.

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#15 Guest_Irate Mormon_*

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Posted 18 June 2007 - 05:43 PM

Harry, what is the minimum floor load you have to frame for??

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#16 Guest_hmt321_*

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Posted 18 June 2007 - 09:43 PM

well it really depends,

so much of what i do is additions and renovations, code requires me to stay over 40 psf, that includes weight of structural members, flooring, furniture, people, etc.

I had an engineer tell me that a floor system made of 2 x 10's spanning 10' was probably way above 60- 70 psf, code says that i cant go over 14' with 2x10's and 15' with 2x12's, I have seen old floor systems with 14' - 16' spans that have a bounce, so i mainly stay to 10' 12' range.

next time i have to consult with an engineer on a job I had planned on asking a few "aquarium" inspired load questions.

but lets think about it, if you have a room with 2 x 10 joists, (on 16" centers) supported every 14' (per code, not per me)

180 gal tank weighs close to 1500 lbs, a 15 X 15 room that is up to the current code (the last time i bothered to look at it) at a minimum, it should support a combined weight of 9000.

what is that about 17% of the total recommended load sitting on .05% of the available square footage?

but hey, i have put in huge bath tubs for people and never once have I beefed up the floor, or had problems with weight.

its hard to say, if i came across a 180 gal aquarium I would make sure that my house can support the weight, buy an engineer a case of beer and see what he says.

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#17 Guest_Irate Mormon_*

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Posted 18 June 2007 - 09:53 PM

what is that about 17% of the total recommended load sitting on .05% of the available square footage?

Yeah, that's pretty scary. Not .05% but way less than 17%.

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#18 Guest_roscoe_*

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Posted 18 June 2007 - 10:29 PM

Guys,

I know of a double wide mobile home that has a 180 gallon reef tank in it. The place did settle a bit, but its still standing. Its not my house and that's very definitely a risk that I would take, but apparently it can be done. I'm assuming that a condo is built stouter than a mobile home, but I'm still not sure that I would be comfortable knowing that I had an aquarium that weighs as much as a Volkswagon in the living room of my condo.

Now if your condo is built like most of the condos I've seen in your area, I bet your basement has a concrete floor but it has probably been converted into a living area. What I would humbly suggest is to put your aquarium in the basement until you move into something bigger and more secure. Most of the condos I've seen in the OH/PENN area are multi-leveled with the basement/garage on the bottom floor. In my mind, that would be the perfect temporary home for a huge aquarium. You could bring it right in through the garage and save carrying it upstairs.

That's just my $.02. But that sure seems like a lot of weight to put in an upstairs area.

-Jason

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#19 Guest_edbihary_*

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Posted 19 June 2007 - 12:53 PM

what is that about 17% of the total recommended load sitting on .05% of the available square footage?

but hey, i have put in huge bath tubs for people and never once have I beefed up the floor, or had problems with weight.

its hard to say, if i came across a 180 gal aquarium I would make sure that my house can support the weight, buy an engineer a case of beer and see what he says.

The fact that the load is concentrated on a beam is not that relevant, as long as the beam can carry the total load applied to it. And from what you wrote, the beams are rated for the load. Think about it, whether the load on the beam is distributed evenly across the entire length of the beam, or is a point load, either way the beam itself is supported at the ends by resultant point loads potentially equal to the total load on the beam. So the beam must be capable of supporting point loads. The codes account for the fact that there are typically concentrated loads imposed on beams, which may be borne nearly 100% by the beam's support wall or column (depending on how close to the end of the beam the load is). Further, the load from an aquarium that size will be distributed across multiple beams.

If you had a large dining room table, with 8 200-lb guys sitting at it eating dinner, would you be concerned?

Okay, now you've heard from an engineer. Where's my beer?

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#20 Guest_teleost_*

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Posted 19 June 2007 - 01:11 PM

Short term, I'd say you could easily handle a tank twice that size but I suspect you want to have the tank for more than a few days.
You can find many topics on forums/online where large tanks owners provide details on exactly how to support a floor in these cases. They do this for a very good reason. Your floor will sag in time. I've seen this on more than one occasion and it's rather an unsightly fix once your floor is bowed (much more unsightly and expensive than adding support in the first place). A 180 will make a nice basement tank and besides my basement stays cooler than the upstairs anyhow.