Could use advice on my new 350 Gal in wall system

[PurdueMAN_08]

Hello all, I dismantled my old 100 gallon cube a couple years ago when we moved and begun building our new house. Now that the new house is mostly finished I want to start on the aquarium room. When we designed the house we put a fishroom right in the middle of the house with the aquarium exposed on the wall in the foyer so it is visible as you walk into the house.

I have already mostly decided on a few things such as the tank.... a glasscages 72x37.5x30.5 using 3/4" glass with a starphire front and an external coast to coast overflow in the rear. They are going to shorten the back glass panel for water to enter the overflow and use eurobracing on the tank.

I am not purchasing the tank until the fish room is completed just in case I change my mind or a deal comes around in the mean time on a similar size.

I also want to use Glenn's DSR (no water change method) but will plumb for a water change vessel just in case I decide to change to the more traditional method. If you haven't checked his system out then go to his DSR thread here http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2301583

My first question is the flooring. I was thinking of using a 2 part epoxy on the floor for protection. The subfloor is comprised of 3/4" OSB screwed and glued to 2x12 joists 12"OC. I am sanding the edges of the OSB to be more level prior to epoxy coating. Should I used a self leveling mortor first or just fill in any gap between the board with exterior caulk and then coat? I have a drain located in the center of the room in case of a spill.

I am going to be extremely thorough with leveling the stand. It will be built from 2x8 and 2x6 lumber and extreme caution will be put onto leveling side to side/ front to back / and corner to opposite corner to put as little stress on the glass tank as possible.

Here is a sketchup drawing of the fish room. The tank doesn't look as tall because we have 9' ceilings in the house. (2 walls made transparent to see in the room)

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Hear is the stand I want to build.

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[Kroamium]

I noticed you designed the house with a tank in mind. but it seems like your house is not a concrete slab and is using regular construction wood joists. Is this correct?

I would guesstimate the weight of your DT area including your stamd/sump to be about 1.5 tons. and probably another half ton of tother equipment and tanks in that room, which looks to be about a 12x10' space.

Not to belittle you, but have you had an engineer see if your floor joist will support that much weight with out flexing. How much cross bracing is in the floor? You can level the DT/stand all you want at the start but over time those joists will expand and contract on you cuasing your stand to flex also.

Also, about your subfloor. Take out the OSB and use concrete backer boards, this will give a great peice of mind as they will not rot over time. you almost have to design your fishroom like a heavyduty bathroom. Its going to get spilled, wet and humid in there.

Just my observation and hopefully saving you some heartache down the road.

 

[PurdueMAN_08]

I noticed you designed the house with a tank in mind. but it seems like your house is not a concrete slab and is using regular construction wood joists. Is this correct?

I would guesstimate the weight of your DT area including your stamd/sump to be about 1.5 tons. and probably another half ton of tother equipment and tanks in that room, which looks to be about a 12x10' space.

Not to belittle you, but have you had an engineer see if your floor joist will support that much weight with out flexing. How much cross bracing is in the floor? You can level the DT/stand all you want at the start but over time those joists will expand and contract on you cuasing your stand to flex also.

Also, about your subfloor. Take out the OSB and use concrete backer boards, this will give a great peice of mind as they will not rot over time. you almost have to design your fishroom like a heavyduty bathroom. Its going to get spilled, wet and humid in there.

Just my observation and hopefully saving you some heartache down the road.

Good observation. I failed to mention the engineering of the floor. Actually, the weight of the DT alone is much more than 1.5 tons. I estimate 5250 lbs with sand/rock/water/ 670lb glass tank / stand.

We built the house like a rock. 2x12 joists which are 12"OC supported by engineerend LVL trusses. Under the DT are 3 footers 2' x 2' x 1' spaced 2' apart to support the weight of the DT. The rest of the room should handle the weight by the joist system alone but I will measure for sag and if anything is measured I will add more footers.

My plan is to use 10 ton foundation jacks on top of the footers to support the joists under the DT.

What about gluing and screwing 1/2 ply on top of the osb. The osb got wet during construction and the edges don't match very well though. Seams the aquarium room is the only spot that a floor sander couldn't get very level. Might pour self leveling mix on the osb then apply the plywood. Need to see what other suggest who have gone through the same thing.

 

[Cdiggy]

Nice!

 

[Kroamium]

Good observation. I failed to mention the engineering of the floor. Actually, the weight of the DT alone is much more than 1.5 tons. I estimate 5250 lbs with sand/rock/water/ 670lb glass tank / stand.

We built the house like a rock. 2x12 joists which are 12"OC supported by engineerend LVL trusses. Under the DT are 3 footers 2' x 2' x 1' spaced 2' apart to support the weight of the DT. The rest of the room should handle the weight by the joist system alone but I will measure for sag and if anything is measured I will add more footers.

My plan is to use 10 ton foundation jacks on top of the footers to support the joists under the DT.

Glad you thought of that before hand. Nothing like having a good piece of mind when it comes to the structure of the house.

What about gluing and screwing 1/2 ply on top of the osb. The osb got wet during construction and the edges don't match very well though. Seams the aquarium room is the only spot that a floor sander couldn't get very level. Might pour self leveling mix on the osb then apply the plywood. Need to see what other suggest who have gone through the same thing.

I would definatly stay away from using any more wood on top of the subfloor. I would still use concrete backer boards. Then you could use a self leveling mortar or a self leveling underlayment to fill in the low spots and joints. This would help in keeping any spilled water away from wood and down the drain. Then finish with tile/lino/carpet as you want.

 

[BigAl2007]

Keep in mind that OSB is a GREAT subfloor in 99.9% of residential applications. Unfortunately this is that small area where it's not. OSB is designed for loads that are spread across a larger area than what you're putting on it. Take that entire weight of the tanks, stand and immediate equipment. Then measure the exact amount of OSB to stand area (square inches at best) and you can calculate your lbs/sq in and see you have what equates to an elephant standing on ice skates. That's a lot of weight pushing down into a small area that can/will compress over time. Granted your design does allow for better weight distribution because you have a boxed base but that's still a lot of weight going into a very small footprint. Backer-board (go ahead and get the thickest you can find locally) is a much better choice all the way around in terms of compression and water problems.

I'm doing the same thing in my new house but I'm building the tank room (and our laundry room) like a large masonry shower. We're going to pour the floors and include a floor drain just for those "uh oh" moments. I had my floor engineered much STRONGER than I would ever need and have engineered floor trusses at 12" OC for the entire tank room. When I ran the #'s I got a lot better performance from the trusses than if I had even doubled the 2x12"S in that area. This wouldn't be ideal for an area where you spend a lot of time walking/standing as when you get a floor this stiff is literally can be hard on your legs and back because it's too stiff. More on stiffness below . . .

You mention "Sag" which I assume you're talking about deflection. That's not something you can measure easily right now because that "real" amount isn't realized until the total load is applied to the structure. By that time it's way too late. You need to go back to whoever sized your LVL beams and find out what deflection #'s they used. It will be a number like L/180, L/240 etc. The higher the number the stiffer (less deflection) the floor will have once fully loaded. As a point of reference (at least here) the minimum for a tile floor is L/360 and if it's a natural stone floor (marble, granite etc) min would be L/720. Also keep in mind that the LVL beams are calculated with specific beating points and you may want to make sure any additional piers/bearing points fall in the correct areas. You can cause a "Sheer Effect" by placing bearing in wrong spot. Consult your original designer who calculated your LVL's and run any modifications through them. They can re-run the calcs in a matter of minutes and prevent a world of problems down the road.

Better to play it safe and over engineer it now rather than trying to fix a problem later on down the road.

Good luck and can't wait to see this tank come together.

*subscribed*

 

[ca1ore]

Are all those ancillary tanks in the plan, or just casual noodling? If the former, it appears the ones on the left are plumbed into the main sump, so refugia, frag tanks? What are the three on the right for - QT? If so, I enthusiastically approve! Multiple QTs are a necessity, IMO, as you build your livestock. Can probably go down to just one once your tank matures.

 

[PurdueMAN_08]

Are all those ancillary tanks in the plan, or just casual noodling? If the former, it appears the ones on the left are plumbed into the main sump, so refugia, frag tanks? What are the three on the right for - QT? If so, I enthusiastically approve! Multiple QTs are a necessity, IMO, as you build your livestock. Can probably go down to just one once your tank matures.

Yes, multiple QT tanks on the right and the left will have a cryptic zone, refugium and water change vessel (It will be plumbed in line with the system and then isolated during water changes to drain and then fill back up with new saltwater and put back in line) The plumbing isn't correct yet, still hashing out the details.

I really hope that Glens system will allow for no water changes as it appears to be able to do... read that as: I hope I can figure his system out :fun5:

As far as the OSB is concerned, the 2x12 are 12"OC and are located precisely under where the legs of the stand are so that should relieve the stress from the OSB correct?

THANK YOU to all who have commented so far. I know somebody will catch me on a trivial mistake that could save a catastrophe in the future.


Also, I decided on the floor. I sanded the edges but found that one of the joists may not be level and it's pushing the OSB up along the aquarium wall. I'm ripping out a 2' section of the OSB and replacing it with new and seeing how well that levels it out. It could just be warped OSB which is my hope. I will know more tomorrow. On top of the OSB I will put super thick KILLS primer to hid the OSB texture and then 2 part epoxy on that (not the cheap water based stuff) I have a 4 car garage that I epoxied with the same stuff manufacturing plants and airplane hangers use. You actually pull it around with a squeegee and back roll it once its set. Once you put it down it will never come up. It's in the order of 11 mils thick!

 

[PurdueMAN_08]

I might still use backer board. Use a cement filler for the edges and SLC any low areas then epoxy right on the SLC.

 

[PurdueMAN_08]

Updated the plumbing a little bit. You can see where I can isolate the tank under the DT for water changes if ever necessary. It will also serve as a detritus settle tank before it goes to the sump tower.

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[PurdueMAN_08]

A view from under the DT

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[Pife]

If I were putting the epoxy down I would try and take it up the walls for 4 to 6 inches as well just to keep the water out from under the walls.

 

[BigAl2007]

PurdueMAN_08 you do great scketh-up work. Your planning and attention to detail are impeccable.

I'm going to borrow some of your ideas and hopefully apply them to my upcoming build

 

[PurdueMAN_08]

If I were putting the epoxy down I would try and take it up the walls for 4 to 6 inches as well just to keep the water out from under the walls.

Absolutely, I'm currently looking for material to put against the wall. One possibility I was thinking was to put standard trim and quarter round and use osi quad exterior grade caulk at the seams. I can then epoxy up to the top of the trim. Osi Quad caulk won't shrink or pull away like normal waterproof caulk will so should be a long lasting treatment. Still pondering this.

PurdueMAN_08 you do great scketh-up work. Your planning and attention to detail are impeccable.

I'm going to borrow some of your ideas and hopefully apply them to my upcoming build

Thanks! I've learned from so many others throughout the years on this fantastic forum.

 

[glennf]

nice setup, you really go the extra mile to realize things.

 

[PurdueMAN_08]

nice setup, you really go the extra mile to realize things.

Thanks so much!

My unfortunate news is the piers (which passed inspection and signed of by the GC) are not where they are supposed to be. I began taking out the osb that appeard warped and low and behold the pears are offset 2 feet to the right. Looks like I will be adding another pier or moving the tank over towards the 45 degree corner... Will be weighing my options and seeing where I go from here.

 

[BigAl2007]

Good thing you found out now before you had a real problem. Go ahead and get another pier put in just to be safe.

 

[PurdueMAN_08]

Well, although the new placement makes the aquarium offset on the wall it also makes a more efficient setup in the fishroom. I will put stone around the tank to help with the offset now that it won't be centered on the wall and probably put a specimen tank to the right of it also built into the wall. Maybe jellyfish????

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[PurdueMAN_08]

Also, each pier has (3) 2x12 LVL spanning 3 feet to the next pier plus the 2x12 floor joist. I don't think this tank is going anywhere even if it weight 10k lbs.... However, I must be very careful with the change in the amount of deflection the rear of the tank will have since it won't be centered on the piers. The front half of the tank will be on the piers and the rear half wont'. Since it is so close I don't know how much affect this will have at the moment.

 

[tassod]

Very nice setup! Tagging along, I'm also doing an in-wall 240g build and will try to implement glennf's DSR system....