Aquarium through the floor?
- Thread starter Dan F
- Start date
pjsmetana;4311998; said:
Can you tell this guys wife doesn't visit this forum? Mean but funny as hell.
I've seen places with floor troubles and uselly what happens from what I've seen is sections of the floor will tip to one side where a beam is cracking and will open up cracks in the drywall first. Also if you where to walk over the section of floor with the damage in it things around it will sake around the weak spot in the floor. the saking or listing I think might make the fish tank break open like the dam in the Moive Earthquake. In that the dam failed do to the saking and cracking around it.
I plan to have my dream tank rest on sold cement or be built out of cement in a section of the house custom built for it one day.
There was a funny scene in the 1970's movie Beyound the Posiden Adventure where they showed a large steel I beam go crashing down though six or seven decks in the ocean linner when one of the main characters stepped on it. I think it would be funny if a large fish tank did this to a three story house.
I plan to have my dream tank rest on sold cement or be built out of cement in a section of the house custom built for it one day.
There was a funny scene in the 1970's movie Beyound the Posiden Adventure where they showed a large steel I beam go crashing down though six or seven decks in the ocean linner when one of the main characters stepped on it. I think it would be funny if a large fish tank did this to a three story house.
I must agree with 12 Volt Man. You are a brave man. Very brave!pjsmetana;4311998; said:
I guess there has to be a comedian at some point in everyone's life. Why not now?
i'm gonna go ahead and reinforce the foundation to be on the safe side. reinforcing will make it easier to sleep at night and i don't want to deal with the headache of loosing live stock, a tank and a lot of money when i could have spent a fraction of the money reinforcing the foundation with some wood and some cinder blocks.
well since we are on topic how about everyone that does have a tank on the upper lower floors tell us what they have and whether its reinforce or not
Now this is one of the topics I most abhorr! Why does it have to come on creeping, again, every now and then??
HAving big tanks on a city apartment has always given me nightmares.
But I live with , and through, these nightmares untill this topic shows up again......
Die topic, die!!
HAving big tanks on a city apartment has always given me nightmares.
But I live with , and through, these nightmares untill this topic shows up again......
Die topic, die!!
Did research on this as I am building a 240g, so here it goes...
A normal residential house floor is rated to ~40-50 lbs/square foot. This number is across the entire floor and not necessarily in one or two spots in the floor. The individual boards spread the weight evenly out through the room and to the walls and then down to the structure of the house. This is how a 200-300lb person can stand in a square foot area and jump with no worry of falling through. But it gets complicated when you take a large tank into effect as 1g of water = 8.9lbs. so 300g = 2670lbs, plus weight of substrate 4'x4'x3" depth = 375lbs of sand, include tank weight 300g plywood with 1 window ~200-300lbs with stand, sump tank? say 75g = 667lbs plus tank ~100lbs (glass). We'll stop there for simplicity but that all works out to ~4112lbs on an area around 5'x5'? = 165lbs / square foot with an area of 25ft.
Common misconception is that if you exceed the floors structural capacity you will fall through like a fat man in a bathtub, but in reality it will damage floors and structural walls etc etc. It may never fall through but it will cause damage without proper bracing.
A great way to think about it is if you pick up a 150lb item, this exceeds your normal lifting capacity but you are able to hold it up, now it's not whether you can hold it up for a few seconds but rather how long until your arms give out and you let it go. Think of this in the same way as the floor boards, yes it can hold that 4 ton tank, but for how long?
My recommendation is unless you know a civil engineer, put it in the basement. (~1000-3000lb/ ft^2 capacity on a basement floor)
A normal residential house floor is rated to ~40-50 lbs/square foot. This number is across the entire floor and not necessarily in one or two spots in the floor. The individual boards spread the weight evenly out through the room and to the walls and then down to the structure of the house. This is how a 200-300lb person can stand in a square foot area and jump with no worry of falling through. But it gets complicated when you take a large tank into effect as 1g of water = 8.9lbs. so 300g = 2670lbs, plus weight of substrate 4'x4'x3" depth = 375lbs of sand, include tank weight 300g plywood with 1 window ~200-300lbs with stand, sump tank? say 75g = 667lbs plus tank ~100lbs (glass). We'll stop there for simplicity but that all works out to ~4112lbs on an area around 5'x5'? = 165lbs / square foot with an area of 25ft.
Common misconception is that if you exceed the floors structural capacity you will fall through like a fat man in a bathtub, but in reality it will damage floors and structural walls etc etc. It may never fall through but it will cause damage without proper bracing.
A great way to think about it is if you pick up a 150lb item, this exceeds your normal lifting capacity but you are able to hold it up, now it's not whether you can hold it up for a few seconds but rather how long until your arms give out and you let it go. Think of this in the same way as the floor boards, yes it can hold that 4 ton tank, but for how long?
My recommendation is unless you know a civil engineer, put it in the basement. (~1000-3000lb/ ft^2 capacity on a basement floor)
