Tank Weight!

[fishlover900]

I now have a 30g tank and a 12g tank next to each other in my room which is upstairs in my house. How much weight do you think should be the total placed upstairs?

 

[Anthony!]

Totally depends on the structure of your house. I've got a 90g, and a 10g in my upstairs, no problems at all. soon to have a 75 filled up (and possibly a 55) and I'm not too worried. At the extreme though, you could have a professional come check out the structure of the house to see if it'll be alright, but with just those two, I would'nt be worried.

 

[BigIan]

i`ve got a 60 gal and a 4 gal upstairs no problem and in our lasses i have a 30 gal upstairs

 

[MrMashashin]

It should'nt be a problem. I had 2 29g's a 10g and a 25g all in the same room upstairs within 10 feet of eachother and it was fine plus i slept in there too! You should be 100% fine

 

[Tolak]

http/badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article28.html

 

[linda1503]

Thanks for that Tolak, very informative! I'm moving soon to a first floor flat and was a bit concerned but this article is very good!!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i`ve got a 60 gal and a 4 gal upstairs no problem and in our lasses i have a 30 gal upstairs

oh do you, there was me thinking that tank was mien, I mean I only got it 4 yrs before I met you, how silly of me

 

[Rocky32189]

That should be fine. I have a 150 and a 75 in the same general area and my floor hasn't fell through.

 

[burtos]

After doing a few calculations (please do not quote me on this but its not perfectly correct but close)

Looking through the building regs new houses from 1985 onwards in the uk were bulit to stand weights of 1.5KN/sq metre on joists, which i think is approx 150 kg per square metre, but i think there is always more give in the limits they use.

150kg = 150 litres of water per square metre

 

[BlueRam]

burtos,

Does it not say anything about placing the weight across joists? Surley there is a difference in putting a 150kg spanning just one joist than spanning the same weight across 2? For example, if you span 2 joists, does that mean you can go to 300kg. I only ask as my new tank will be 300kg which I am spanning over 3 joists although it will be just over 1 square metre.

 

[Bloo]

This I found and excellent article - but most importantly:

And now for the most commonly perpetuated myth of all. Someone in the forum asks if they think it is possible to place a 120 gallon tank on the second floor of their apartment. The answers inevitably go something like this: "I see no reason you can't. I've had a 125 gallon aquarium in my bedroom for years."



Myth #17: "If my floor didn't collapse with a ??? gallon aquarium, then your floor should be okay too"

Since the person posting the question provides no information at all about the composition of the floor construction, the span of the floor framing or the relative position of the tank, there is just no way for anyone to provide a logical answer. Yet answers flow from people perfectly willing to compare apples to oranges to watermellons to come up with a recomendation. (And in this example the comparison is even a worse because the 125 gallon tank is 6 ft long and the 120 gallon tank is only 4 ft long.)



If you know why the answer given in myth #17 is so illogical, then you understand why I decided to sit down and write this all out. I wanted everyone to have a very basic understanding of the many factors that go into the evaluation of the structural capacity of a floor framing system. I wanted to give people some guidance on where to best postion their tank and when it is best to seek some outside guidance. And most of all, I wanted people to stop believing in and perpetuating the myths that spread through the internet like wildfire. Unfortunately, if you hear the same advise repeated over and over, you can start to believe that it is a commonly recognized fact. Hopefully, now we can get rid of the discussions about the; woman in high heels, the man in the bathtub, the people jumping off the sofa and the cure-all plywood under the tank.

 

[Anthony!]

As always, bloo's got a point..... (How come I always have to be wrong in this forum? I want to be right once in awhile! )

 

[Fillet 'O' Fish]

Hi Im actually a Structural Engineer for a living.
There is a lot of truth in most of the posts here, but not all entirely correct.

All domestic Houses/flats are designed to carry 1.5 Kn/m2 which does equate to 150 Kg/m2.

The load each joist can take will depend on their spacing. This does vary from House to Housbuilder. Some at 300mm centres, some at 400mm, and some at 450mm.

If say yours are at 300mm centres then each joist can take 45 kg per metre run.

It must also be considered that hardly anyone will load the floor to 150kg/m2 over the whole footprint (which is what they are designed to take), so localised heavier loads can be permitted if there is no other loading imediately around it.

Trust this helps a little?

If you give me more specifics about tank footprint, joists sizes centres and spans, I would be happy to check for you.
regards

Brian

 

[Fishkeeper2004]

Just make sure the tank is raised from the floor with something, a bit of wood would be suffiecient, as this spreads out the weight. Also, make sure the tank goes across multiple joint, and that the weight is not just on 1 or 2 floorboards.

Follow those two rules, and I don't believe you will have a problem.