Where to put 350 Gallon Tank

[12 Volt Man]

one thing to keep in mind when looking at the load rating for wood flooring is that the rating is for the entire floor.

in other words, a floor rated for up to 40 pounds per square inch can handle up to that spread out over the entire room.

with huge aquariums, you are dealing with huge weights in only a small fraction of the room. so we must be careful when applying the ratings in regards to a huge fish tank..

this is a good article about aquariums and wood flooring:

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/aquarium_weight.php

its a good read.

 

[cichlidude]

This COMPLETELY depends on the floor framing members, which direction they are spanning, and how close to a bearing wall the tank is located. Your tank will weigh 3000 lbs plus when full which is about 125 lbs per square foot assuming an 8 x 3 footprint. Depending on how close to the end of the supporting floor framing members it is placed this could be a big deal, or not a big deal at all. So short answer is - more info is needed.

Yeah, okay that's like a woman standing with her feet together every square foot and the floor can't hold this?? So I guess no parties anymore.

 

[yamaracer5]

Dang i must be way to cautious then cause i braced up my floor for my 125 gallon. I just did not want my floor to start sagging over the years.

 

[12 Volt Man]

Yeah, okay that's like a woman standing with her feet together every square foot and the floor can't hold this?? So I guess no parties anymore.

people move around.

3500 pound aquariums do not. they stay in the exact same place for 15+ years.

thats the difference.

its like stacking two small cars in a living room and leaving them there. 3500 pounds is an enormous amount of weight.

 

[Bderick67]

wheew just went down there to check things out... the walls have concrete standings but the joist are unfortunately parallel to the tank and the wall that I have it on. It looks like it will hold but its hard to judge the spot exactly while I'm under the house. Hmm... I just want to get the tank filled today and moving it is quite troublesome but manageable.

You are asking for trouble, you will have 3500 lbs sitting on, at best 2 joists, possibly a single joist. Grandma is gonna be pissed when you break her house.

 

[Coues]

^^The above two posts are on it. The floor may hold at first, but over time will very likely have problems. Without much warning either - wood generally fails in a brittle (all of the sudden) fashion.