New tank, floor analysis

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Mstansbury0704

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So in petsmart today they had a sale on a 125gal and stand for 399. I couldnā€™t pass it up. And I had planned on needing to reinforce my joists with some sister boards and a few beam jacks as I hadnā€™t been in the crawl space in a long time. This is what I find. And Iā€™m excited as it looks like I need nothing except to get the tank home :D. In the picture the ductwork runs to a vent that is actually located in one of those hexagon shaped window overhangs past the footers..so the tank would be located almost directly on or immediately in front on the footer and block wall. And perpendicular to the joists as well. And then itā€™s only an 8 foot span on the oddball sized 2x9( all 2x10s Iā€™ve seen were 9 1/4ā€)joists to a beam of 3 2x12ā€™s. I took some pictures. Iā€™ll upload them. Would you all still tie the joists together with sisterboards or leave alone
Photo of board with my hand is the joist
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It might be good to put in 2x10 blocking between and perpendicular to the joists where each of the legs of the stand will rest on the floor and you could build a post with two 2x4s down to the floor. That much weight could punch through the subfloor. Have fun with the new tank.
 
The stand itself isnā€™t like a tradition metal stand with feet if thatā€™s what your thinking, itā€™s a wood or particle board stand with a full length base..should I still be concerned about that??
 
Since it's on an outside wall and the tank will span across multiple joists, I doubt you'd need sisters, cross bracing, or vertical support. You could do it, but I'm not sure it's necessary considering the even distribution across many joists. BUT, I'm not a structural engineer.
 
Sounds like you will be alright with the weight being spread out over the whole stand. What I did with my twin 30 gallon tanks was to add a wooden base to sit the stand on spreading out the weight evenly. I had some finish wood in my basement, never use particle board it will break down over time if you get it wet. It tends to soak up water.
 
Sadly Upon close inspection however it does have feet on each corner about half an inch longer. I actually though it was a solid base. Iā€™ve kicked around the idea of being lazy and just sitting the tank on those extra large furniture sliders to spread the footprint out a little. Or just try to get the feet to sit on the joists but I donā€™t think the math will workout for me.
 
Try and find some large boards or like I did a large finished wooden board the size of a counter top and 1 inch thick. Hard wood works best for the weight. Next I used metal coasters about 5x5 squares for each foot. You may want to go a little larger. Place the stand on the metal coasters and on top of the wooden board which is on the floor.
 
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Hereā€™s a pic or two. It appears the front and the back are a flat piece and the sides float about a 16th off.
E4D50658-6273-4EBE-A4AC-A70D33EA9E45.jpegCCCF14A0-0BC9-4DB7-A6F4-FCC538D9DA2B.jpeg43BD95EA-9565-4302-83DB-B8D324EA27E9.jpeg
 
If you place wooden planks under it so the front and back rest evenly on them the weight will be evenly distributed on the floor by the planks.
 
Do you think I should still go that route? Iā€™m so anxious about this damn thing unloading it felt like it had feet but I was carrying it on the sides and didnā€™t notice the front and back 6 foot sections are even. like I said the tank will be running across the joists damn near right ontop of the footers..and it seems like the length of the tank will be supported, just not the short sides. So it will have a 6ā€™ solid footprint on 2 sides, however it will be a skinnier footprint vs using a board. Not an engineer but is the subfloor is already doing this type of lod distribution effect onto the joists for me? Now if it was a metal stand with actual foot pedestals I definitely would understand as the likely hood of my feet sitting right on a joist is nonexistent and 1400 pounds on four 2 inch footprints would be insane ...my father being a retired general contractor I almost feel stupid asking these questions, but this is entirely different type of load than say a big fireplace lol..I donā€™t think Iā€™d have an issue..we built dads home with Huge I joists and it makes my home look like a glue model from shop class lol. Needless to say Iā€™m excited to get started on it. While Iā€™m typing a huge paragraph does anyone have any filter suggestions? I was looking at the fx6 but talking to a friend of mine said that was a super expensive filter and would probably be overkill for me..any other good filters?
 
When you stand on your two feet your weight is distributed over a small area so each square inch has a ground pressure of say 10 pounds but if you stand on a board your weight is distributed over a much larger area so now you have a ground pressure of say 1-2 pounds per square inch. You are going from the contact area of the front and back of the stand on the floor to the contact area of the whole board on your floor and you can expand that area buy having longer boards if you want. The tank and stand will still weight the same only the weight is spread out over a larger area. There is a formula you can use to find out what the ground pressure will be.
 
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125 gallon tank equals to about 1,000 pounds at 8 pounds a gallon of water. What is the size of the supporting floor beams? You can look up on line what weight they can take then count the number of beams and measure the area that the tank covers. Many years ago I had a king size water bed in my upstairs bedroom so I had to check this too, Good luck.
 
Yea what i was getting at was sitting on the subfloor the subfloor itself is transferring that weight to the joists which would be distributed evenly between the width of the tank as the joists are running perpendicular to the length of the tank..sitting on 2 long boards wouldn't change how the weight is shared by the joists right? Unless I got a board that was longer to capture more joists..Or are we are talking about the subfloor itself crushing some which I imagine isn't advantech as my house is cheap built probably with plywood or osb I've seen both of those types of subfloor squish from
Pressure but never advantech..is that what you are saying? Should I Be concerned about subfloor squishing..I never even thought of that. I'll have to find a calculator online. My phone got crushed at work so I'm on a loaner phone and its supers clunky and hard to type on lol. I NEVER would have thought I'd see the day I'd Be concerned about having an aquarium that was too big for my floors lmao
 

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