When to support the floors

Chicagoreef2016

Chicagoreef2016

New member
How big of a tank can you safely put on wood floors/main level of a house? As in I want to put a tank in my office, 160-180 gallons roughly, but have no real way to support the floors any more than they are already set up as I have a finished basement.

Cheers.
 
Depends , on the kind of floor joists your home is built with ,, hard to know with out cracking open the ceiling


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There's quite a few posts about this over in the DIY forum but you're definitely going to need to know what's in your floor for anything better than a guess.
 
I think you would be fine as long as you have your tank perpendicular to the joists and place it by a load bearing wall.
 
theshocker said:
I think you would be fine as long as you have your tank perpendicular to the joists and place it by a load bearing wall.
Click to expand...

It will be near/on a load bearing wall and perpendicular to the joists I believe. I will be against the wall on a side of my house. So my thought is if anywhere is safe that wall is. I do have the ability to get in right below now that I think of it as my house sump is directly below.
 
Chicagoreef2016 said:
It will be near/on a load bearing wall and perpendicular to the joists I believe. I will be against the wall on a side of my house. So my thought is if anywhere is safe that wall is. I do have the ability to get in right below now that I think of it as my house sump is directly below.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't chance it if you don't know if it will be running perpendicular. Find the I beam and you can figure out which way the joists go.
 
My house is 14 years old. Living room houses my tank, room is 15 x 18.
My joists are 30' long manufactured silent floor joists. It runs concrete to concrete with steel beam supporting in middle. I had 80g on supporting wall with perpendicular joists...
Removed it wanted 150g on outside wall causing joists to run parallel under tank. Only 2 joists centered under tank. It was there 10 years, replaced it with a 210g.
All is level and I have a way to measure movement. All is good at the 13 year point of this weight
 
Tspors58 said:
My house is 14 years old. Living room houses my tank, room is 15 x 18.
My joists are 30' long manufactured silent floor joists. It runs concrete to concrete with steel beam supporting in middle. I had 80g on supporting wall with perpendicular joists...
Removed it wanted 150g on outside wall causing joists to run parallel under tank. Only 2 joists centered under tank. It was there 10 years, replaced it with a 210g.
All is level and I have a way to measure movement. All is good at the 13 year point of this weight
Click to expand...

Thanks! My house is 4 years old, and I don't have issues with shaking floors, etc. I attached a pic, basically my tank would run parallel with the joists, up against a load bearing wall. Probably over 1-2 joists based upon depth of tank at 24" or so. In the pic I attached the wall on the right is the load bearing and/or side of my house. So the back of the tank would be against that coming out right to left, for all of the golfers on here. I imagine I should be fine, would case I can add a support or two. Not sure if I can sister the joist with all of the plumbing/lines up there and limited space.
 

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You should get a structural engineer out there so see what he thinks. With pipes etc underneath and a finished basement you really need to make sure you get it right. I just had this done for a parallel 180 and he suggested 6 additional beams, and I'm nervous that it won't be enough.
 
bean2986 said:
You should get a structural engineer out there so see what he thinks. With pipes etc underneath and a finished basement you really need to make sure you get it right. I just had this done for a parallel 180 and he suggested 6 additional beams, and I'm nervous that it won't be enough.
Click to expand...

Good to know, thanks! That is a lot of water in the off chance it doesn't make it. Good advice!
 
I would get 2- ibeams to support the pair of joists. It will look ugly, what you can do is wall that section of your basement with drywall, paint it the same as the rest of the room and call it a day.

This is what did with a 300G 8ftx2ft parallel to 2 joists. 3 i beams to the basement concrete took care of it.
 
My tanks sump and filtration,uv...... are located in the basement. I built a a 2' x 8' shelf 5' high. 1.5" pipes 2 going up the wall and out and and 2 1" pipes coming down through wall. The shelf built with 4x4 so on..
Equipment on there. I have a steel plate with a steel rod welded to it on shelf and it is just touching 1 joist. If it lodges I would then set supports. There has been a ton of weight there for 12 years.
American Family Ins.
 
Is there a point where it becomes a gray zone? I never even thought about this being an issue, but the biggest tank I have is a 55.
 
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