tank placement weight distribution

[coralreefaquarist]

sadly being forced to move in with parents. arghh no comment. but now i will be on a single level home. today i dumped the last 100 bucks at home depot and made a stupid ridiculous over engineered stand for the tank. i want to put it off of the wall like island peninsula style so it can be viewed from 3 sides. how do i figure out where i can put it? i dont want it to be placed in between floor boards and have it fall through the plywood section. will a stud finder wok/ help through the carpet and padding. or am i going to have to crawl under there(scary). any tips

 

thanks guys

[Lundy24]

Really depends on the size if the tank. What size is it? I haven't tried it but I don't think a studfinder will work thru the plywood. You may want to just climb under and take a look. You can see what direction the joists run and if they are dimensioned lumber or an engineered wood product. Ideally you want the tank to run perpendicular to the flood joists so the load is spread to mutliple joists

[dsoz]

I think that floor joists are usually every 12 inches. Unless you are in a really old house like mine (92 years old), then they can be almost anything. I think mine are an average of 16" apart.

 

If you can find one, the next one is 12" away. You may want to double check if you go into the crawl space.

 

I agree, with Lundy, go perpendicular to the joists so that the load is spread across several of them.

 

dsoz

[coralreefaquarist]

i hate spiders but ill prob just poke my head down there and check.its only a 40 and no sump. but i just want to be sure its good

[Lundy24]

In that case you will def be find. Even if all the weight was on a single joist you it would be ok especially since its at a wall

[dsoz]

Only if the wall is a load bearing wall. If it is just a partition wall, then there is no support under it.

 

I agree though, a 40g should be fine in most cases. I still think that it should be perpendicular to the joists, and over at least two of them just for weight distribution.

 

dsoz

[CCR]

Just go under and take a look. It will give you peace of mind at the least.

[downhill_biker]

i agree. just check it out. if you really need help, i can come over and look. that said. when you go paralell to the joists people usually build small spacer joists that go the opposite way. they aren't as strong, but for your tank it would probably be fine. but as i said before, i would be willing to come over and check it out, and maybe pick up a frag of that acan????

[siskiou]

Definitely take a look! Floors have been built in very different ways over the years, and it all depends on the age of the house and what was code then.

 

We reinforced our floor where the 120G is last year, because we just wanted to be sure.

Turns out, our floor is a tongue and groove with 2x6s, which is apparently something today's contractors aren't used to anymore.

[undrtkr_00]

Even with a stand and stuff, you should be looking at less than 400 pounds. If you'd let 2 big guys stand next to each other in that spot, you should have no problem.