120g safe on the second floor?

[Dorado13]

I'm hoping that the handy people on the DIY forum can help me with a question I've been worrying about. I plan on buying a 120 gallon tank and want to put it on the second floor. With the weight of the stand, tank and water in the tank and sump, the system might end up weighing up to 1500lbs(hopefully worse case senario). Is this just a completely bad idea or will it be alright? The tank would be set up against a load baring wall and the house is pretty new(6 years old) if that helps anything. Thanks for the help.

 

[rooroo]

I'm actually interested about this too. I'm moving my tank on Sunday. It's a 65 gallon and will likely be moved to the second floor of the house. House was built in 91, wood frame construction. Am I good next to a load bearing wall? And how do I know which ones are load bearing?

 

[cougaraug]

120 may be a little much for a 2nd floor. I think you're thinking a little light too. with a 40 gal sump (don't know what size you're using, but that's what I have on my 90) you're looking at 1360 lbs, leaving you only 140 lbs for other stuff. I'd figure on at least a ton to be safe. If you end up having to do it, place the tank across as many of the floor supports as possible.

 

[reefnewbie54321]

I have a 120 on second floor but its also on a exterior wall and runs opposite of the joists to spread it across as many joist's as possible. I also only have a 20g sump (12g when filled to correct level) and a 10g Top Off Resevior.

 

[conchead]

My 120 is on second floor, near a load bearing wall, no problems,,,,

 

[humbugy]

get an engineer to look at your house, better safe than sorry

 

[Siberia]

Yeah, I agree with humbugy, get an engineer. If you do the math, this is what you may have on your floor:

At least 1,600 LBS just for water alone.
A good 150-200 LBD for the tank itself.
Your sand could easily add another 100-200 LBS.
Your live rock will add a 100 LBS or more to the load.
Depending on type and material used, your stand can add another 30 to 100 LBS, if not more.

Are you scared yet? I know I would not sleep well at night, knowing there is that much weight upstairs...

Food for thaught... ;-)

Cheers!

 

[Matrexz]

Where do you get the 1,600 lbs for water alone it's going to be only 120 gallon main tank????? I could have swore I read that water weighed roughly 9lbs/ gallon.

 

[Dorado13]

Thanks for all the comments guys

I just wanted to say that 1 gallon weighs approx. 8.34lbs. If I were to have around 30 gallons or so in my sump, the total water would weigh 1251lbs. The weight of the live rock and sand are not added to the weight of the tank volume since they are displacing water, so it would not be 1251lbs + 300lbs of live rock and sand. I'm not really sure of live rock's weight in relation to water.

I suppose that having an engineer come and check things out would be the smart thing to do, but I'm just afraid that I already know what the answer will be.

Another thing that I started thinking about the other day was the jacuzzi that we have on the second floor which can easily hold 150gallons. Although I know that there is probably more bracing underneath, but it just got me thinking.

 

[Big Boy69]

It's 10lbs/gal w/o rock or sand.
With rock and sand it's an average of 13lbs/gal.
That's w/o the weight of the tank, stand, sump, lighting, food, scrapers, containers, etc, etc.
I'd play it safe to say with everything that you would have up there, you would be close to 2000lbs.

 

[RichConley]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7786662#post7786662 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Big Boy69
It's 10lbs/gal w/o rock or sand.
With rock and sand it's an average of 13lbs/gal.
That's w/o the weight of the tank, stand, sump, lighting, food, scrapers, containers, etc, etc.
I'd play it safe to say with everything that you would have up there, you would be close to 2000lbs.

Where are you getting those numbers?

Water is 8.3 lbs/gallon.

Sand is roughly 80-90lbs per cubic foot, with a cubic foot being 7.5 gallons, so rouglhy 10.5-11lbs per gallon. Rock isnt much denser (and in many cases less) than sand. If he filled up his entire sump and tank with sand, he'd be at 1920lbs at absolute most, so IMO, theres no way in hell hes going to be over 1600 lbs.

 

[GROSSR]

Get 7 of your friend, big men and have them jump up and down, if they don't fall through you will be fine.

My home if 45 years old, not six, I have a unsupported overhang in the front. If is about 20". My 90 gallon sat over that for 4 years. Yes the tank listed about 1", I had water leaks, which was great because it leak into the overhang outside of the house.

My 90 plus stand, hood, and 22 gallon refuge did fine.

What I would suggest is find out the location of the beams underneath your floor and make sure you get the most coverage over those support beams.

And if you put it in a corner you can get even greater weights in that the stress is distribed against two walls and then down to the ground.

rich

 

[rm41400]

My 120 is fine on the second floor. It is against a load bearing wall and perpendicular to the joists. I have about 200# of live rock and a 40 gallon sump.

I would not feel comfortable going any bigger though. The floor does seem to shake a little when wlaking next to the tank. Another considerations is how much other heavy misc stuff you have in the room...is it a community room?

 

[reefnewbie54321]

I think a 120g + 20-30g sump is fine. BUT I strongly suggest that it is against a load bearing wall and perpendicular to the joists. I would not try to do it any other way.

 

[blufish]

Fresh water weighs around 8.3 lbs per gallon.

Seawater weights around 8.6 lbs per gallon because of the dissolved solids.

 

[hllywd]

Upstairs, downstairs, it doesn't matter in platform (the way houses are built today) construction. The floor joists are probably 2x10s 16" OC this is just as adequate upstairs as it is downstairs. Look at the underside of the first floor platform in the basement or crawlspace and the 2nd floor most likely will be the same. The biggest problem with upstairs is that if you have a leak it runs to the downstairs ceiling.

Older construction may not be safe on either floor.

Tim

 

[kalare]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7787608#post7787608 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GROSSR
Get 7 of your friend, big men and have them jump up and down, if they don't fall through you will be fine.

My home if 45 years old, not six, I have a unsupported overhang in the front. If is about 20". My 90 gallon sat over that for 4 years. Yes the tank listed about 1", I had water leaks, which was great because it leak into the overhang outside of the house.

My 90 plus stand, hood, and 22 gallon refuge did fine.

What I would suggest is find out the location of the beams underneath your floor and make sure you get the most coverage over those support beams.

And if you put it in a corner you can get even greater weights in that the stress is distribed against two walls and then down to the ground.

rich

Just because it sat there for 4 yrs doesn't mean it's safe. I've seem MANY un-permitted houses that were fully functional but that I would never personally step foot in for fear of collapse, especially under any wind or seismic load. As for having it in a corner, this is incorrect as floor joists will only run into one wall, so this load will not be distributed into two walls.

As for putting this thing on a second floor, in most cases it's probably safe, but keep in mind that most floor systems are only designed for about 65 pounds per square foot, which is MUCH lower that what you're 120 will require. I myself have an 80 with around 20g in the sump at any time, so figure 100 gallons over a basement on 2x8's. The floor joists in that area are pretty short though, so not a big problem.

Without knowing more details of how your floor system is, I can't help you more, but adding 325 pounds per foot for 2' out from the wall on a normal floor joist may just put it over the top.

 

[Architect1]

You can have it on the second floor if its an apartment building. Maybe if you had a new house with at least 12"high joist at 16" on center. But still that’s a lot of weight on the joist that would mean you’d have maybe 5 joist holding all that weight up.

You could do it if you had bracing under neath with a beam and still columns under it at the one corner but you would have to have an open basement to do all this work.

then you can fill in the wall in the basement then put in another huge tank in the wall.

 

[Nano Chris]

When you put the ls, and lr in the tank, it displaces the water, so there would be less water in the tank.

 

[Dorado13]

Next question, how do you find out which direction the joists are going? Sorry, I'm not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to this stuff.