# How big of a tank before my floor collapse?



## eternity302 (Apr 22, 2010)

I've been asking how big of a tank I could have in my townhouse on the third floor! And while I wuz talking to 2wheelsx2 today, I completely forgot that my old manager use to help people to renovations and somewhat a structural engineer! So I thought I do some extra searching online today, and try to figure out how big of a tank I can go, this is what I found googling, and I thought I share!

I'm sure most of you know Badman's Tropical Fish
Have a good read if you wanna know how big of a tank you can go! Doesn't matter if you're in a house, condo, apartment, wutever!
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article28.html


----------



## bailey (Apr 24, 2010)

started, but didnt finish. all the same, cool read and i will finish. someday...

bailey


----------



## darb (Apr 21, 2010)

eternity302 said:


> Have a good read if you wanna know how big of a tank you can go! Doesn't matter if you're in a house, condo, apartment, wutever!
> http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article28.html


The 55/125 sounds like good advice for wood frame construction, but there many residential dwellings made out of concrete. Even in a single family wood frame there are exceptions to that rule, slab on grade construction and basement slab on grade floors.

Your typical concrete residential mid/high rise has at least 6 inches of concrete and rebar in the floors and I personally wouldn't hesitate to go heavier than 125 there, especially if it was near a column.


----------



## eternity302 (Apr 22, 2010)

darb said:


> The 55/125 sounds like good advice for wood frame construction, but there many residential dwellings made out of concrete. Even in a single family wood frame there are exceptions to that rule, slab on grade construction and basement slab on grade floors.
> 
> Your typical concrete residential mid/high rise has at least 6 inches of concrete and rebar in the floors and I personally wouldn't hesitate to go heavier than 125 there, especially if it was near a column.


If you read to the bottom of the link, as his conclusion to everything, it's all hard to define unless you can actually see through your walls, measure, and have a degree as a structure engineering! There are no exact numbers, this is just a link to give you an idea! It's great to know that all your "TYPICAL" concrete residential mid/high rise has 6 inch of concrete, but still not ALL! It just gives everyone an idea on the consideration and thought of what would the maximum tank size they should go =) btw, if you read the whole thing, he mentions many many many many times everything has an exception, down to what type of tank stand your using~


----------



## darb (Apr 21, 2010)

eternity302 said:


> Have a good read if you wanna know how big of a tank you can go! Doesn't matter if you're in a house, condo, apartment, wutever!


well not quite whatever since the article only deal with single detached wood frame construction.



eternity302 said:


> It's great to know that all your "TYPICAL" concrete residential mid/high rise has 6 inch of concrete, but still not ALL!


if you want to get a better idea about your building, simply walk into the stairwell and have a look, again they typically aren't drywalled.



eternity302 said:


> If you read to the bottom of the link, as his conclusion to everything, it's all hard to define unless you can actually see through your walls, measure, and have a degree as a structure engineering! There are no exact numbers, this is just a link to give you an idea! It's great to know that all your "TYPICAL" concrete residential mid/high rise has 6 inch of concrete, but still not ALL! It just gives everyone an idea on the consideration and thought of what would the maximum tank size they should go =) btw, if you read the whole thing, he mentions many many many many times everything has an exception, down to what type of tank stand your using~


I read the whole thing, just your comment needed clarification ...


----------



## Morainy (Apr 21, 2010)

A useful and clear article. Thank you!


----------



## eternity302 (Apr 22, 2010)

Darb... since you seem to know how this whole thing works! Mind i ask, in the states it's a minimum 40lb/sqft, but i'm not sure the minimum in Canada, what would it be?


----------



## onefishtwofish (Apr 21, 2010)

city hall should have the plans no?


----------



## eternity302 (Apr 22, 2010)

onefishtwofish said:


> city hall should have the plans no?


I'm not sure... Good question.. and if they'll release it to only family members or the actual owner? As the place is written in my dad's name but he's not around in Canada... at least not for a long long time!


----------



## Arghas (May 16, 2010)

I've been struggling about this for quite some time as well...no answer yet.......also been trying to find a structural engineer.

Let me know if you find more details! This is definitely awesome read


----------



## eternity302 (Apr 22, 2010)

Okay! I couldn't fall asleep few nites ago I remembered something!
I had 2 Mastercraft racks in this room... there's around 850 sq/ft in a "L" shape room!
Third floor, 20 years old townhouse complex!

Here's the weight I had, and i completely forgot about it
2x Racks side by die weighting around 50lb's each (metal and wood)
2x 29 gallon tank with less than an inch substrate, side by side, together should be around 600lb's!
Lets just make this long story short!
4x 10 gallon tank and another 4x 5 gallon tank! spread across a room against a wall at 96"x24"

btw.. there's also another tank in my room of 60gallons with 2" substrate gravel! It wuz like this for a few months until I took down most tanks because I had too much other things to do!

So come to think of it, it can hold quite a bit of water, at least 200gallons of water, but not sure how it'll do in the long term!


----------



## Arghas (May 16, 2010)

hmmmn ur 96x24 seems like all in all 600+400 lbs, thats equivalent to 1 100 gallon tank roughly. As far as i know, aquariums upto 120 gallons are fine as long as they are resting on a wall/joist. 96x24= 8 feet by 2 feet, vs. a 1000lbs weight, it should come out to around 62.5 pounds per square feet. Asfaik the safe one is 40 psf (from the articles), ofcourse, most 100 gallon tanks dont go with those dimensions, and they go something around 120-150ish pounds per square feet.


----------



## eternity302 (Apr 22, 2010)

Yah, i wuz being told that 120gallon would be safe!~ But I'm certain msot of us aren't satisfied with just 120 gallon =)


----------



## Arghas (May 16, 2010)

Yeah hehe thats true.....i was told by a lfs its 150....he said he was a builder before...ofcourse...i wish someone who wasn't trying to sell me something would tell me this, any structural engineers here? or builder?


----------



## eternity302 (Apr 22, 2010)

HAHA!!!
I've been trying to locate one, but can't find anyone!


----------



## MNP (May 4, 2010)

The room in question is wood frame (to code) 12 x 14 - 168 sq ft @ (40 lbs per sq ft) = the floor capacity is 6720 lbs. FOOTPRINT

The footprint of a 72 x 18 x 24 = 9 sq ft (125) aquarium is approx. 1400 lbs FOOTPRINT

I wouldn't even think about anything near that on a (typical) wood frame floor assembly. You put that on the wrong wall (parrallel) to floor joist you may have a stair opening before its full. A 46-50 would be my limit and placed perpendicular to joist.

Consult a professional 

PS: A concrete highrise floor may not satify capacity either (and in most) not allowed.

Building Technologist


----------



## eternity302 (Apr 22, 2010)

MNP said:


> The room in question is wood frame (to code) 12 x 14 - 168 sq ft @ (40 lbs per sq ft) = the floor capacity is 6720 lbs. FOOTPRINT
> 
> The footprint of a 72 x 18 x 24 = 9 sq ft (125) aquarium is approx. 1400 lbs FOOTPRINT
> 
> ...


Now that we have a Building Technologist here! So i guess a 125gallon aquarium is actually very unsafe for any building until we can find correctly how much weight we can put on the floor from a professional?


----------



## DAN O (Apr 21, 2010)

MNP said:


> The room in question is wood frame (to code) 12 x 14 - 168 sq ft @ (40 lbs per sq ft) = the floor capacity is 6720 lbs. FOOTPRINT
> 
> The footprint of a 72 x 18 x 24 = 9 sq ft (125) aquarium is approx. 1400 lbs FOOTPRINT
> 
> ...


lam no Building Technologist. but in my last place l had three tanks in my living room of my 2nd story fifty year old house. One 6' 135g by the stair well wall, 5' 108g by the outside wall, 4' 90g by the kitchen wall. All locations had a vertical wall below. O by the way my living room was 15' by 20' all tanks were set up for over 18 years, with no sagging or extra stair opening. l guess they don't build them like they used to...


----------



## fkshiu (Apr 22, 2010)

MNP said:


> The room in question is wood frame (to code) 12 x 14 - 168 sq ft @ (40 lbs per sq ft) = the floor capacity is 6720 lbs. FOOTPRINT
> 
> The footprint of a 72 x 18 x 24 = 9 sq ft (125) aquarium is approx. 1400 lbs FOOTPRINT
> 
> ...


I'm no engineer or anything and I do stand to be corrected, but that can't be correct for the simple fact that I know of numerous 50+ gallon tanks in numerous buildings without a single issue.

Literally thousands upon thousands of large tanks are situate in wood constructed buildings around the world and you'd think that in this day and age someone would have heard something about an aquarium crashing through a floor. And yet I have not heard of a single instance of this occurring.

Use some sense and you'll be safe in a properly constructed building with any standard-sized tank:
- place against a load bearing wall perpendicular to the joists and on a properly constructed stand.
- keep a close eye underneath for signs of sagging.


----------



## target (Apr 21, 2010)

In my newly constructed condo I had 2 - 46 gallon bowfronts stacked above each other in a 36"x18" footprint. That was easily over 1000 lbs of weight, and there wasn't even a tiny bit of movement in the floor. People also routinely put grand pianos on upper floors, and that is over 1000lbs of weight concentrated on 3 small points.

I'm not an engineer, but if your floor is so weak it couldn't hold at least 1000lbs in that footprint I would be moving. The floor would be likely to collapse if you jumped hard enough. Look at what your stand is constructed out of. Most commercially bought stands are made of 1x3 or 1x4. Your floor will be at least 2x8 or 2x10, if not bigger.


----------



## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

Franklin makes a good point. I've discussed this issue with lots of fish friends & I've been in the addiction for over 3 decades & none of us have ever heard of an instance when someone's tank went through their floor or even caused major damage enough to make the floor unsafe. Spillage is an issue with water damage going down vertically, but properly situated, a tank should not cause a structural failure.


----------

