Any builders here?

wez130

wez130

wez130

Soldato
Joined
31 Jan 2004
Posts
11,330
Location
Matakana New Zealand
I'm currently building up a reef system (marines and coral etc), and i want to stick the tank upstairs in the room where i spend most time, however it has a wooden floor.

The tank itself is 350litres and weighs maybe 60-70kg empty, there is also a sump which weighs maybe 25kilo and will hold a further 100/150 litres of water so were talking about 600kg here.

I'd be sitting the tank (3x2x2) across the joists and it will cross a minimum of 2 joists and the tank is right next to a load bearing wall (downstairs).

So, will it hold the weight?

Thanks
 
Personally I wouldn't do it.

However, easy test would be to get you n 5-6 of your mates to huddle together in the area you want your tank....if you fall through the ceiling you know it wont work ;)
 
All depends on the age of the house and the size of the tank. If the tank is large and is spreading the weight out then things will be better. Considering that it is in a corner that is even better.

Don't forget to take into equation the stand and any gravel etc.

I think 600kg or 0.6 metric tonnes is quite a weight. Don't forget that a full bath weighs a hell of a lot and the floor can hold that, but the room is quite small with structural wall on 3 or more sides.

We need more info, like the size of the room, tank size and what else is in there. Also when was the house built because we may be able to get an idea of the psf rating of the floor.

-----------------------------------------------

Fill it up, then run downstairs and look for cracks.

Options available:

Cracks appear. Run upstairs and empty it.

No Cracks. you will be ok.

;-)

My GFs dad put a huge tank that held as much water as a bath and a half upstairs in a house 100+ years old. After I told him how much it probably weighed, it went down stairs the same day.

I wounld not be comfortable with that much weight on the 2nd floor unless I knew my joists were huge!
 
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Read about this and a man was putting a 600kg filing cabinet upstairs. It was an americal limestone house about 100 years old (so probably not like yours!) but anyhow it was decided it'd be ok.

I was looking it up as I was concerned about the weight of Hi-Fi equiptment :eek:. I have changed my design since anyhow so it would be less than 250kg total and would be spread around so no worries I think.
 
600kg should be fine especially near to a load wall, the floor boards and joists will help distribute the weight

middle of the room should be fine too but your ceiling may sag a little








*if you house collapses don't blame me
 
well i've discovered that the joists don't actually run across the room, but along it so to be safe i've decided to have it downstairs on the concrete floor :D

The tank by the way is a 3x2x2 (LxWxD) which sounds small but is infact quite large :D
 
wez130 said:
well i've discovered that the joists don't actually run across the room, but along it so to be safe i've decided to have it downstairs on the concrete floor :D

The tank by the way is a 3x2x2 (LxWxD) which sounds small but is infact quite large :D
Click to expand...

Its the sensible option. Now get a bigger tank :D

Aero
 
Aero said:
Its the sensible option. Now get a bigger tank :D

Aero
Click to expand...

i was lucky to get the one i got, the missus won't let me getan 8x2x2 :D

I've been building the stand today and i'm well chuffed with the progress so far, i've bought all my equipment except for live rock, though should have had 20kg but have been scammed :(.

Got an RO unit to plumb in, a metal halide / T5 luminaire to hang, need to plumb my tank and sump then decide what my stocking plan is, really can't wait to have some life in there though. I'll have a thread on it though when it's all done.
 
Sounds sweet, I'd contact your lfs to see what they can do for an order for live rock and the same for a box of corals. Its worth a check to see what you can get for repeat trade...

Aero
 
Ok an update.

The joists actually run across the room as i'd hoped, they are 8x2 and run 16" apart, the tank would cross 2 of these at equal spaces across the tank. The tank on its longest length will run parallel to a supporting wall, the joists span an (approx) 8 foot gap from interior supporting wall to exterior supporting wall.

I intend on placing the tank on a sheet of 1/2inch exterior plywood to spread the weight.
 
The extra ply probably wont make a lot of difference as the floorboards / chipboard with be doing the spreading anyway and 12mm ply is pretty flexible.
 
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