125 gallon mbuna aquarium weight and floor support

[Darkskies]

Hi,
I decided to create a new thread instead of continuously expanding my first thread with more questions. So, I have a 125 gallon tank that is in the living room and is currently empty. I have previously had it full with water, gravel and fish for a number of years and have not experienced any sign of collapse or damage to the floor. Now that I am planning on converting it into an mbuna community tank, I am worried that adding 250 lbs of rock(plus two heaters, and an aquaclear 70 making for a total of 3 filters, 2 110s and the 70) might be more than my floor can handle. I am assuming that the fish themselves do not contribute much to the overall weight. I know that the only way for anyone to assess this for me is if they personally inspected my house but any advice you can give me would be helpful. Thanks!

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the aquarium is placed directly against a wall.

 

[emptyhead]

If your tank is spread across several floor beams - you should be fine. I personally would not put it on a wall in my house that runs parallel with the floor beams without adding some additional support under the sub-flooring directly under the tank.

Of course if your house is water damaged or termite infested; the tank may just fall through the floor any second now.

Check out this link for more info:
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article28.html

 

[timkersh]

You'd be surprised on how much weight an average floor can handle. Think about people having large furniture with lots of books on it. I've never heard of a floor collapsing. But it is a valid question, and your right about it being hard for anyone to answer without inspecting it for themselves.

 

[watercrawl]

The other thing to keep in mind is that even though you're adding 250 pounds of rock, you'll also be displacing a lot of water by adding the rocks.

Rocks weigh between 125 and 150 pounds per cubic foot and water weighs 62.4 pounds per cubic foot so roughly half. So if you're adding 250 pounds of rock, you'll only be adding roughly half that in total weight.

 

[Darkskies]

All right. Thanks guys for the advice. I'll put off my worrying.

The other thing to keep in mind is that even though you're adding 250 pounds of rock, you'll also be displacing a lot of water by adding the rocks.

Rocks weigh between 125 and 150 pounds per cubic foot and water weighs 62.4 pounds per cubic foot so roughly half. So if you're adding 250 pounds of rock, you'll only be adding roughly half that in total weight.

 

[Clay]

Standard 125g is 6x1.5 footprint which equals 9 sqft. Average of about 10lbs/gallon and you can estimate 1250lbs. 1250/9 = 139lbs sq ft.

 

[bunty82]

according to the law of buoyancy container will hold the amount it holds before.
I mean to say
even if u add 200kg of rocks
the supporting power of that container(tank). will still be the same
as the rock will replace water space hence less water in the tank.
No need to worry.
Just imagine u adding ice to a glass fill with water , the water moves out to support the capacity.

 

[DustyBZoo]

I have an old house and I worried too. I agree to what was said above, you'd be suprised at how much a floor can handle.

 

[valderi123]

it'll be ok

 

[wild bill]

You never did mention the dimensions of your tank we have a 120 that is 4by 2. Another thing is older houses will have a stronger floor than a newer house say less than 15 years old do the joyce run paralell to the wall or would there be 2 or 3 under the tank and how close is the wall to support in the basement. We have 3 150s on the main floor but they are all on well supported joce running at 90 degrees to thetanks make sure you take a look in the basement and check this out if there is alot of support you'll be fine.