Bracing floor for big tanks

[MonsterFishCreeper]

Hello MFK,

I'm moving in a few months and will be able to get a bigger tank finally. Going to get into a 180 at a minimum and the tank will be going in the dining room. The house seems sturdy and was built in the mid 1950's but I'm considering bracing the floor. I have access to the floor joists from below the living room and it would be easy I assume to put some beams going from the concrete floor of the basement up to the area of the tank. Has anyone done this? Im thinking some 4x6's going vertical would keep the pressure off the floor or maybe they make some commercially available metal floor brace? Any suggestions here are appreciated.

 

[MonsterFishCreeper]

I should add that the tank will be on a load bearing wall as this is a townhouse but being that it's going in the dining room, I'm worried that if my whole family came over dinner and I had like 8 people in the room the weight might be crazy high.

 

[Brent419]

I've used one of these before from Lowes for our house built in the 30's

 

[jsodwi]

Run a couple doubled up 2x8 or 2x10 across the beams in the basement and use those adjustable lally columns you'll be able to put a large amount of weight the the floor

 

[Niners4952]

I used 4X6 for mine but my floor joist were only 2X6. Id make sure you have 1 covering the front and back. What size are your floor joist? A 180 should be ok without support but I would rather have insurance.

 

[millerkid519]

I have a 180 on the main floor with 2 jack post under it. Been like that for 3 years now with no issue

 

[MonsterFishCreeper]

Maybe if I get comfortable with this idea of bracing the floor I'll just go with a 265. I wonder if four people could move one? My LFS stocks tanks up to 265 which I think are 7 foot tanks. So to clarify I could put two columns on the front side of the tank and two on the back. There is also a non load bearing wall that sits on these joists in the middle of the room so maybe a total of 6 columns to be safe.



I know this picture of sloppy and I should mention the tank isn't sitting on one joist rather it sits where a the tank would be over several and the tank is against the wall where the joist enter the concrete foundation.

 

[millerkid519]

No need for the third row under the non sporting wall. Just under the tank and you are good to go

 

[rodger]

No need for the third row under the non sporting wall. Just under the tank and you are good to go

You are an engineer?

 

[millerkid519]

No I am not but if you have the tank supported on all 4 corners there is no weight being transferred out onto the floor joists