How heavy is too heavy?

icebear · 09-13-2006, 09:03 AM

i've never had a tank more than 55g and my house is 100 years old...

would i need to worry about the floor handling the weight of a 75g tank? it would be somewhere around 700# at least, filled and running.

how would i know beforehand, just to be sure?

VWD · 09-13-2006, 09:07 AM

I would say unless the wood is rotten , I don't think You will have a problem, remember, That is over an area of 48 X 18 inches, How often do You have people over that are 200 lbs in a 2 X 2 area.

90_berlin_joe · 09-13-2006, 09:12 AM

Icebear, I would first look for a support wall to put it on (i.e outside wall). If you have a basement look for support beams and you should be able to put the tank above them. Other than that it should be able to hold with no problems.

DebsSisterFlo · 09-13-2006, 10:57 AM

it also helps to have the tank perpendicular to the floor joists, not parallel... that way the weight is distributed over more support. I also agree with putting it on an outside wall, just a little more support yet.

Congrats on getting a bigger tank

icebear · 09-13-2006, 10:59 AM

ok, cool... the wall i'm eyeing is an outside wall and will be perp to the joists, so i guess it should be ok then. I'll have to watch the level tho, cause all the floors have a slight tilt to them. Maybe i'll rip up the carpet first.

Twitterbait · 09-13-2006, 11:43 AM

don't worry about the carpet. I would get some 1/2" particle board and cut it to the footprint of the stand then set the tank on it. it will do a better job at dispersing the weight of the tank. then set it parrallel to the bearing wall and perpendicular to the floor joists. if the floor is not level then shim under the particle board to make it level instead. should be much easier.

DebsSisterFlo · 09-13-2006, 11:45 AM

you can get a sheet of that pink styrofoam board, cut it to the size of the tank and put it between the tank and the stand. That will help to level the tank so that the pressure is more even on all of the tank walls.

icebear · 09-14-2006, 09:12 AM

this tank may turn into a 110g

does that change things much?

saltwater_wannabe · 09-14-2006, 09:36 AM

You definitely need to consider adding some additional floor support or at least locating a good spot near an outside wall. I was fortunate in that the home inspector that we used for our closing was also a structural inspector. I told him what I wanted to do and he advised me of some simple improvements. The average house floor is only made to withstand ~50lbs/sqft of dead load (concentrated, constant weight) and your average 75g tank dishes out somewhere around 3x that. I'm not saying that your floor is going to fail, just that over time, you will have additional settling and sagging and your tank may be a risk to fall over at some point.

When I put my 75g up, I bought 4-2x8s and nailed them against the existing floor joists (aka sistering). The tank now sits on 7 joists instead of 3; it's a cheap piece of insurance. It would at least be in your best interest to have a structural inspector take a look at your house relative to where you're putting your tank.

Just my $0.02.

~B