My 180 and my 120 are on opposite sides of the same wall..... In my double wide! Throw some jackstands under the house running opposite from the joists on or as near to the corners of the tank as you can get.... That's how I did mine and there is no sagging in my tindaminium!
Bracing floor for big tanks
- Thread starter MonsterFishCreeper
- Start date
I have a 270 filled to about 240 gallons with a 8x2 aross all floor joists the tank sits on....with 3 support jacks under it .....one for each from corner of the tank and one in the middle
A touch of common sense goes a long ways, I agree with millerkid, add a post at all 4 corners to the basement floor and weight is then not sitting on flood, what I'm going to do for my 300 gallon. Yes you probably have rough cut lumber in your house, is it post and beam? Mine was built in 1903 and has rough cut lumber and all the load bearing walls have 8x8s running under them with a birds mouth cut into joist, which I don't like so sistering a joist next to it and a post under each corner. You want tank to sit perpendicular to your joists as well
No a 180 gallon tank won't simply fall though the floor. What will happen is over a year or several weeks it will cause the floor to warp and bend and make the tank level. It is a mess that happens very slowly.
There are a few forces, shear and bending. Shear force is like where the joist sits on the sill plate, can actually break the joists there and bending is where warpage comes in. I found an article on this a while back, will see if I can find it again, was a really good read written by a structural engineer
I have done setups like this many times and usually, if placed against a load bearing wall and the tank is set perpendicular to floor joist, just ran 2 face to face 2x6 olong the front of the tank on top of the store bought floor braces. To date, i have never had a tank take the easy way to the basement.
Edit: of course if you haven't bought the house yet, it is nice to have a main level on a nice slab. It was secretly my main concern when shopping for my house. My lady thinks I just love ranches and homes with walk out basements for some reason
Edit: of course if you haven't bought the house yet, it is nice to have a main level on a nice slab. It was secretly my main concern when shopping for my house. My lady thinks I just love ranches and homes with walk out basements for some reason
I'm planning to have a steel building built for the fish tank or build the fish room as a add on to a existing house. The fish room would be on a solid concrete slab or in a walk out basement.
A local welding shop could fabricate a custom brace system. Wood will be the least expensive.
I got one joist under a 180 gallons on a 1887 built rock foundation. The subfloor is 1.5" thick.
Jacked up and welded in place, bolted into concrete footing.
Just a little side note. My Dad was an architect for 40 years and we had lots of conversations on issues. No architects and engineers are not the same when it comes to bridges, but for houses, architects meed to know virtually all that engineers know because engineers do not review home designs before they are built.
Architects are supposed to understand construction materials, load bearing factors, live-dead weight issues, humidity and lighting, etc., similarly to engineers with regards to building construction not just conceptually but in real live practice. Engineers are ALSO used in larger structures where more complex issues are common.
In terms of residential housing, engineers are rarely used because houses rarely have tremendously difficult issues. The OP issue at hand is not a complex or difficult one for either an engineer or an architect to answer correctly.
What is important to note however is that neither would likely answer the OP without seeing the exact structure. Non engineers / non architects / non construction people often miss important details in describing or imagining a condition of a structure.
So since last week when I posted this I have actually decided to go with a 125 because its going to be 6-12 months before we move and I don't want to have to move a bigger tank twice. I'm going to check out the joist situation again when I go over and I may forego bracing the floor for just the 125. Basically I'm moving into a house a family member owns that will be vacant for a while so I can sell my house and save up for a down payment on a nicer place. A walkout basement with concrete floors will be in order for the next place so I can have a proper fish and reptile room to contain my hobbies to one area of the house.
Thanks for all the replies to this thread I hope it helps some people with structural decisions for big tanks.
Thanks for all the replies to this thread I hope it helps some people with structural decisions for big tanks.
