Do I Weigh Too Much For My Floor?

[CLOSSIE]

OK. Assuming I am buying a 6x2x2 tanks. I have calculated the following.

6x2x2 = inches 72x24x24
72x24x24 = cm 180x61x61

So
180*61*61 = Maximum Water 669,780 cm3
669,780 / 1000 = approx 670 lites or 177 US Gallons

Now.
1 Litre of water weighs 1KG, therefore we are talking about 670 Kilos of water (before tank and stand).
670 Kilos is 106 Stone (for us UK people).

Now to my question...
I live in an old converted cottage. Even the downstairs has floor boards and joists rather than a concrete floor.
The tank would sit over 2 joists. The joists running in paralell with the tank i.e

___________________
-l---------------------------l--Joist
-l---------------------------l---Joist
l ___________________l



Is this tank going to weigh too much? Over the joists I have floorboards, over the floorboards I have another layer of wooden flooring. I'm thinking that this will help to spread the weight, however I do not want to end up with an expensive tank sitting in the foundations of my house and a rather large repair bill and set of divorce papers from the wife!!

Those of you with large tanks.. How do you do it?

Help would be appreciated. Its not often the wife gives in, and the longer I leave it, she may change her mind...

Although slightly off topic, I would need a modern Beech cabinet.. Is it best to custom build (recommendations greatfully received), or is it best to buy tank and stand as one.

Cheers
Clive

 

[Birdie]

With the riders that
a: I am not a structural ( or any other sort of) engineer, and
b: mylargest tank is less than 50usg
I found this link very informative
Residential Wood Framed Floors and Aquarium Weights
by: Kevin Bauman

from the badman's tropical fish site. (Somebody else posted it on a similar thread, and I bookmarked it).

 

[PRW1988]

one easy way to decide wether or not that area will hold the wait of the tank is to get a bunch of your friends to stand in that are, make sure that all of you combined weight is about 750K (the tank, plus gravel,decoration etc.). If it can hold you and your friends, then that area should be good, if not... well then you may havea hole in your house for a while...

 

[OohFeeshy]

one easy way to decide wether or not that area will hold the wait of the tank is to get a bunch of your friends to stand in that are, make sure that all of you combined weight is about 750K (the tank, plus gravel,decoration etc.). If it can hold you and your friends, then that area should be good, if not... well then you may havea hole in your house for a while...

That's not really a good guideline... Don't forget, the tank will be on the floor for years, the distribution of pressure is different and will flunctuate. TBH, you can't really guage what will hold and what won't- you'd probably have to find a structural engineer or similar.

 

[Underwurlde]

I can only say this, as I have said for many similar questions such as this:

!! GET A STRUCTURAL ENGINEER TO HAVE A LOOK AT YOUR HOUSE !!

This should only be the kind of answer to a question like this.

So, you're in court for manslaghter because 2/3rds of a tonne of fish tank has fallen through your floor and killed someone / a kid and you explain to the judge:
"It's ok m'lud, some geezer on a fish forum told me it was OK"

Go figure mate.

Andy

 

[Maxta]

Also have to take into consideration the sand/gravel you place at the bottom of the tank, plus ornaments/wood.

Tanks are heavy, but i think floorboards are very strong indeed. I think you'd be okay to be honest. But if youre unsure id get it tested like others have said, perhaps you could get someone in to put ssomething in which would support the floorboards of the area you wish to put the tank in, like wooden posts from the concrete foundations upwards, that would definately help.

 

[for_my_fish]

if its going on the ground floor do you have access to the area underneath the joists? If you you can always put in some support props for good measure.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

To be honest, personally i wouldn't risk puttting such a heavy tank on some old cottage floor boards and i would just take out some floor boards and make a concrete base for the tank to sit on .

 

[CLOSSIE]

many thanks for the feedback. Until the secondary flooring went down, I would have had access to perhaps build some support under the beams. Now the floors down I'm scuppered. O well.. Was worth the try.
Actually - - I do have a small area of open boards just next to the room in which the tank would go. Perhaps I could get an enginneer, or builder to take a look.

Thanks

NB - Did my calculations look correct? Is a 6ft tank really like 170 gallons.. I've only got a 30g at present, so it would be quite a jump.

 

[Underwurlde]

Bang on.

Make life easy for yourself: Type this into Google:

'41472 inches cubed in us gallons'
(result: 180 US Gallons)

'41472 inches cubed in uk gallons'
(result: 150 UK or Imperial Gallons)

'41472 inches cubed in litres'
(result: 680Litres)

Andy

 

[CLOSSIE]

I can only say this, as I have said for many similar questions such as this:

!! GET A STRUCTURAL ENGINEER TO HAVE A LOOK AT YOUR HOUSE !!

This should only be the kind of answer to a question like this.

So, you're in court for manslaghter because 2/3rds of a tonne of fish tank has fallen through your floor and killed someone / a kid and you explain to the judge:
"It's ok m'lud, some geezer on a fish forum told me it was OK"

Go figure mate.

Andy

Just to make life worse,,,, I have just lifted the floor boards... If the tank does rip through to the foundations..... The gas mains are directly underneath....I guess should an explosion occur, I would have 170 gallons of water lying around to put it out with lol

Am just drawing up some measurements incase there are any structural engineers on the forum willing to pass initial comments for free...

 

[Underwurlde]

Am just drawing up some measurements incase there are any structural engineers on the forum willing to pass initial comments for free...

Don't waste your time! A structural engineer will have to see it for himself: In other words, are you qulified to make the 'right' measurements of the right things.

Andy

 

[rdd1952]

This is the sight I use for aquarium rough weights. A gallon of water is about 8.33 lb so that's about 1500 lb. Add the weight of the tank, stand, substrate, decorations and the 2100 lb they list is probably close. That equates out to 2100 lb sppread over 1728 square inches (actually more than that as that is just the tank size and the stand will be larger. That is only 1.22 psi and any floor should hold that. If the floor joists aren't rotten, there will be no problem at all.

Having said that, everyone else is probably correct that it is better to get an engineer or inspector to look to make sure there aren't any structural issues such as rotten wood that would cause a problem. It is also better if the tank runs across the floor joists rather than parallel with them as that gives the tank most support. When they run across them, they all have to break for the tank to go through. When they run parallel, if the front most one breaks, the tank could tilt forward away from the wall and turn over or go through.

 

[MojoDex]

i agree with whqat people are saying get a tructural engineer to have a look at it and if u get the right type they will test the weight bareing capacity of your floor as well, if its possible to make access id have some support made out of steel para bolted to the floor underneath and coach bolted to the joists so it cant go anywhere, just sumthing simple like 2 beams with an end plate and an angle on top of them.

but all in all have it looked at just not worth the risk end of the day