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Ok. I just bought a 125 gallon tank today and its going in my bedroom. My house is like 10 years old or less and its going to be on an outside wall. When I fill this sucker up its not gonna go through the floor or anything is it???? PS- I got 2 29's a 10 and a 5 in the bedroom aswell but they are on diffrent walls.

Thanks,

Chris

Hi weighates,

You might want to take a look at [link=This Post]http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/forums/Getting%20Started/62983.html?200508161218" style="COLOR: #ff6633[/link]. It will answer your question.

Hope this helps,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

If the house is only 10 years old, i don't see any problems. With older houses there will be problems, but with your's i think it's Ok.


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I'm in a 3rd floor apartment with wood floors, the building is ~30 years old. I have a 75g, 29g, 20g and 2 10g tanks on what would be considered our outside wall, but technically it's shared with the adjoining apartment.

Do your research; framing, joists, load-bearing walls, etc. Again I recommend [link=this article]http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/aquarium_weight.php" style="COLOR: #99FF33[/link], which I found quite helpful when I added my largest tank in Jan.

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

You should be ok, but really try and find out where the main beams and all that good technical stuff is It will pay off in the long run if you can. Also as it's been mentioned in that other post [link=Ingo pointed to]http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/forums/Getting%20Started/62983.html?200508161218" style="COLOR: #FF1493[/link] the tank isn't going to be lightweight or easy to move at all I know just moving mine in was hard, and I don't want to think if we had had to move it upstairs, make sure you have plenty of help, I still swear it weighs more than 200 lbs

heidi

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle

pfffft. This is more about pounds per square foot than floorplans. Load-bearing walls are nowhere near as crucial as a firm, wide base for your tank. Here is an example. Let us suppose you are a man with feet a bit wider than most, at 12". Let us also suppose that your feet are 12 inches long. You weigh 200 pounds, which is not out of the realm of possibility. OK, standing in one place you are exerting a downward force upon the floor of 200 pounds per square foot, eh?

Now...Let us go on. You have a 4ft long tank, which is 1 foot wide. This gives you an approximate tank volume of 45 US gallons, right? Now, let us assume that you are going to put this tank upon a base which is full bottomed. (This means the bottom of the stand MUST be a sheet of plywood, rather than just an open bottom.) OK, still with me? Now in order for this particular tank to exert MORE downward force than YOU, it would have to weigh a total of more than 800 pounds.

Water weighs approximately 8 pounds per gallon, but I always figure 10 pounds per to be safe. This would then make your 45 gallon tank weigh 450 pounds, in theory...I am not going to say exactly, rock weighs more, glass is heavy, etc. HOWEVER, this still leaves you 350 pounds of leeway to allow for all of these extras, ie. stand weight, extra filters, rocks, decorations, scuba dan divers

My point is, more often than not, we overworry a problem, and sometimes a little simple math can help. Put the tank against a different wall, use a GOOD stand, and try not to worry much. Also , please keep in mind that while newer homes have newer floors, older homes had stronger floors to begin with, for the most part.

While force does play a major part in holding up a tank, the floor still has to be able to hold the weight.

Taking the 200 pound man. Under your example, he is putting 200 pounds per square foot of pressure on the floor. Ok, lets take a 8' x 8' peice of wood, and place it on the floor. If it were putting 200 pounds of pressure on the floor, at that size, it would total 12,800 pounds. I doubt a floor can hold 6.4 tons.

the other way. Take a pickup truck that weighs 2000 pounds. Put it on a peice of wood thats 12' x 8'. Thats less than 21 pounds per square foot. Little weight per square foot, but a LOT of weight total.

I know I went overboard on the weight thing, but I'm just giving an example. While each square inch of floor doesn't have to hold too much weight individually, it may not be the main concern. Its just something that irritates me when people only consider PpSF.

Anyway, I wouldn't worry about a tank under 200 gallons in a new home.

ah, but I was NOT only considering PPSF. There are a great many things in a home that are quite weighty. The problem is that most people are going to spend so much time trying to figure out whether or not the floor can handle the weight or not, they go completely overboard. As for the 8'x8' board, you lost me....I don't get what you were trying to say there.

Now the pick-up, I CAN argue your reasoning. A pick-up doesn't sit flush to the surface, nor would it's size be feasible to put in ones bedroom. I know you were just using an example, so I will leave the feasibility angle alone, and go to the square footage. An automobile sits upon 4 tires which have considerably less square footage than if it were sitting flat upon the floor. And no, putting it upon a sheet of plywood will not help. The plywood will fluctuate and warp, and there will still be pressure spots. The reason that a tank can sit upon a flush base and have the PPSF remain the same is because the weight of the water is going to be, for the most part, an equal weight across the entire surface.

Even the human weight-to-square footage ratio is flawed, as humans do not have perfectly flat feet, nor do we tend to carry our weight evenly. It was a simplified formula, used as an illustration. My basic point was that we often overthink things when we can simplify them.

Oh yeah, and back to the pick-up, even if it were sitting flush, it is still going to exceed the maximum load for a floor, simply by sheer weight. A floor can still only hold so much weight in total. a pick-up will more likely weigh 4 thousand pounds than 2 thousand. Takes a LOT of tanks to weigh that much.

I know my logic was flawed. I know cars sit on 4 wheels, but it was the only thing i could think of that weighed a lot that almost EVERYONE could think of.

Its late, and I did mean 2 tons for trucks... the 2 tons got mixed with 2000 and it somehow became 1 ton.... :%)

and yes, a wood would warp under the weight of a vehicle, but my point was to get the weight of the car evenly distrubuted.

since we're throwing in all possible variables, first you need to get the truck into the house to prove my point...
:%)

[font color="#C00000"]WARNING[/font] I cannot be held responcible for any front door frames ripped off, caved in floors/house, or totalled vehicles....

Last edited by Racso at 18-Aug-2005 01:07

Dude, my hubby has a gun safe. We had to roll the heavy sucker out of our last home on pvc pipe for rollers, then kinda walked it into the pick-up. We then had to use a backhoe to lift it OUT of the pick-up, and into the new house. We had to completely remove the whole doorframe in the room we put it in, and roll it on pvc into the room. Putting a pick-up in woulda been easier

You shouldn't look a PPSF. You should look a how much weight is on each floor joist, location in relation to the main beam and founation, and the size of the of the joists.

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To tell you the truth folks, old houses are much better built than new ones. My house is over 110years and will be around longer than alot of new houses. True 2x's were used back then and the wood was much stronger. Douglas fur is much stronger than pine that they use nowadays. But either way cross the floor joists and be next to a load bearing wall and you will be fine.

Sure, a house built like there were 110 years ago would prob be better than a current home. BUT, factor in 110 years of ageing, leaking, rotting, termites, stress, etc. etc., and now which floor do you want to put your aquarium on?

My house is 140 years old though 25 years old (depends on which remodel you are currently in). The parts of the house that are 140 years old have real 2"x10" joisting. Ontop of this is 2"x6" solid planking sub floor, and then ontop of that is 3/4"x4" flooring When i walk though any of those 5 rooms the floor does not even bounce the tiniest bit. The newest addition to my house has 2"x10" I joisting and 3/4" subfloor I can feel a bounce in any of these 5 rooms as i walk through them.

I have actually cracked joist in the new section of the house with a 90g tank that was set next to a load bearing wall.

The stands that i have come up with that do evenly distribute the weight are a piece of 3/4" plywood directly under the tank, then cinderblock placed in a haybale pattern to the desired height, then a piece of 3/4" plywood on the floor directly below them. Of course all of this is covered by a piece of fabric that fits my wifes "decor"

Bdadawg

ok, aquarium stands ands tables sometimes have legs- there will be a tiny point of contact on the floor compared with a human foot. Buy the ones with flat bases, that contact as much of the floor as possible , and avoid the ones with casters and skinny legs to be sure. Basically if i want to know if a table is good enough for most aquaria, get a friend and boogie on it.if it doesnt collapse it probly ok ,(me and the girlfriend weight a combined 32 stone lol. spread the load

Thats funny Rasco. Granted I have no tanks on my 2nd floor(unused), but I have a 120 and 125 on the 1st. They just "lean" a bit . But truthfully I am a union carpenter(concrete) and have built many multimillion $ homes, and mine was built better minus the foundation which is why it leans( the darn concrete settles). But I trust it more than most houses built nowadays. Problem nowadays is the general contracters cut too many corners to make a buck. Choose a reputibale contracter too build your house peeps.