Aquarium Concrete Floor Load

[PPisczak]

Hello!

Though I've owned a number of tanks over the years I am a newby to this forum. As an Engineer I've always wanted to design a large salt water tank showing into our Family room with the body and all piping located in our adjacent Utility room. Convenient

Fortunately our house is on three floors with the bottom one housing the Family, Utility rooms and 2 car garage. The aquarium and stand that I have almost finished designing is 260 gallons - 92 x 24.5 x 26.5 high. Lots of weight here especially when including sand, corel etc.

Question I have is do I have any concern or need reinforcement for my concrete floor. Logic says that by 4400 pound Jeep parked in the garage on approximately 4 square feet has not been a problem, but just the same for safety concern I will place a plate, likely steel on the bottom of my stand to distribute the load across the floor.

Any thoughts are appreciated and thanks for any help.

Phil

 

[serpentman]

I have seen plenty of tanks in the 300-400g range sit on a slab with no reinforcement.

I don't think you will have an issue. You would be distributing approximately 3000-3500 lbs over ~2200 sq. in. for an average load of ~1.4 lb/sq. in. Assuming your slab is poured relatively even, it should take the weight.

The plate itself is probably not necessary but a nice fail safe. If you really want to go for overkill, you could enlarge the it to distribute weight over a larger area.

However, if you would sleep better at night, you could probably have a structural analysis done where they take readings of the concrete thickness. IMO, given the size of the tank though, I don't think its necessary.

 

[Aadler]

[welcome]

I dont see any problems unless your floor is an inch thick w/o any form of steel enforcement (which i doubt).

 

[Akronviper]

A concrete floor poured using cheaper concrete at 4" should still have a compressive strength of 3000 psi so the stand will not be a problem ( the jeep is loaded at the tires so your looking at 3000 lbs held by 16 sq inches, where the tank would be around 2500 lbs on 2000 sq in.)

Your biggest problem will be the levelness of the floor most slabs are pitched to the drains and depending how good the finisher is there may be dips and valleys. Only other issue I could see is existing cracks or joints in the floor (if they run through your tanks footprint) moving up or down separately from the others due to frost or moisture.

Those are worst case all in all your probably over designing and will just fine

 

[tolo13]

My home is a spilt level also. I have a 300 gals on my slab in my family room with everything in another room and just the front glass in the wall of my family room.

 

[PPisczak]

A Big Thanks

A Big Thanks

Thanks to everyone for some reassuring advice. I tend to be cautious when dealing with loads and double check. Our three story Colonial, built in 1968, is well suited for placing such a tank in the lowest level. I will post my design once it is finished sometime in January. Again everyone's comments are much appreciated and thanks again for your patience.

Best regards,

PPisczak

 

[sailoracu2]

Basement concrete is 6 sack with a 2000 psi. Per square foot, you will not need any reinforcement.