colmandsam

Hello everyone, as some of you may know I have just purchased a 380 litre tank which i expecting delivery of in the next couple of days. But (theres always a but) my wife insoncerned the weight of the tank may have on our wooden floors. The tank is a corner unit and the floor is mounted on 2*1 battens. The fact that its a corner tank and the floor area it covers is relatively small, what are the chances of me having dodgy floors? Thanks.. or tanks

OzzyFan

I've also had this concern. I read somewhere that a gallon weighs about 10 pounds, so that means my tank would weigh about 250 pounds when full, and in your case (IF that is the correct equivalency), you've got 1,000 pounds of fishtank...if 380 liters is 100 gallons. Hopefully I'm not correct though; that's like parking a Smart Car on your floor...if that is how much it really will weigh, I'd put it in the basement where you've got no floors to fall through.

I honestly have no idea how strong floors are. Do you mean "Will the boards crack?" or do you mean "Will the tank crash through my floor and into the basement?". Either way...I don't know, and this is something I think everyone who intends to get a big tank someday should know.

Butterfly

You also have to consider the weight of the tank and stand it's self as well as substrate and decor
Carol

Drea

Water weighs 8lbs. per gallon. So the substrate(gravel varies per lb, but you control how much) and decorations are added in, and likes been said, the stand figures in also......your wife was wise to think about that

susitna-flower

Water weighs 8 lbs per gallon. Butterfly is correct, we often forget that we add 250 or more lbs of substrate. It is conceivable your complete tank could weigh somewhere around 1250-1500. The thing to do is check the support IN the floor. Will the weight be distributed between several floor joists? Would there be any way to locate it over a wall below? Typical home floors are designed to support 50-60 lbs / sq ft.

My 125 gallon tank weighs 250-300 EMPTY, set up it is 104 lbs/sq ft. which is over the allowable weight for most floors. It would be a good idea to have someone who is familiar with construction to inspect the floor, and help you determine how much it will safely hold.

OzzyFan

^If a floor is designed to support 50-60 pounds per square foot, why I don't I fall through when I stand with both feet together, or on one foot, thus putting 130 pounds in one small spot?

Not to be a jerk or anything. I just don't see how it works.

Shaina

Because that's considered a "live load" average of X lbs/square foot, which is theoretically spread uniformly over the floor in question. I think a normal house is more like 40-50 lbs/sq ft as a minimum requirement--how high you can actually go is dependent on the floor itself, the safety factor for which it was designed, and how flawed your flooring is relative to that accounted for by the safety factor.

Alasse

I too was very concerned about this.

I ended up buying a solid core door, cutting it to fit and putting it on the floor and the tank on top of it, to spread the weight out over all the joists. The tank is far more stable than the 4ft i had just sitting on the floorboards.

colmandsam

Thanks all. I am living in Ireland where we dont have basements constucted into our houses. The tank is a corner unit and my main concern is that the floor will warp due to the excess weight. The floor is sitting on 2 x 1 joists on top of a solid concrete floor. Anyone ever had warped floors due to a tank? A fish tank that is , not one on tracks with a 50mm gun in the front mounted on a turret.......