450g Support Help

[Ripnlips82]

Hello everyone! I have a 450g planet 96x36x30. There is no possible way for me to get this into the basement like I had originally planned. Is there anyone on here that has a tank this size on floor joists? I had an engineer draw up plans for supporting a 240g but plans changed and I went bigger. Currently, the local engineers have been no help. All the replies have been "not interested".
My original plan was a 240g parallel to the floor joists, so I added 3 in that location. I would then make a bottom plate with 2x4s vertically supporting each joist. This 450g, is a full walk around with an island style overflow. I would love to set it up this way but the configuration of the room will not allow it. That being said, I would like to set it up as a peninsula and at least utilize 3 sides of the tank. This will also allow me to pick up 6 or more joists, with it now being perpendicular. The room below will be used as a frag and sump room. The 2x10 joists span about 12ft from stem wall to another load bearing wall. My thought is similar to the previous plan. I will sister and support each joist, essentially building two load bearing walls under the tank. I think the concrete holding is my major concern. Will this distribute the weight well enough?

If I would have seen this post prior to buying this tank, I would say "this guy is crazy" but now being in this situation, I am hoping it's possible.

 

[blaxsun]

Anything's possible if you throw enough money at it.

Here's another member that had an engineer retrofit a new support for his Red Sea S-850 (about 240 gallons).

Large Build - Trying to "do it right": My RedSea Reefer-S 850

Spent about 5 hours busting rock and starting to build the scape. I’m going to have three structures. Left side will be a large split structure strictly LPS…mostly torches and gonis. Middle structure will be the smallest and likely primarily SPS Right side will be a large structure with a...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Johnz]

General Contractor here. This is touchy, that is a lot of weight on a wood floor. Having 2 load bearing walls underneath it, down to the concrete sounds like it will be fine. I would add blocking between the floor joists, to keep them from twisting under the load. Every 16" - 24" full height blocking. Make sure everything is tight, shim if you need to. Uneven settling would be bad. You never said what size your floor joists are, but if there is a continuous load bearing wall underneath, and they are at least 2 x 8 you should be fine.

There is no way to answer your main question, whether the concrete would hold without knowing the reinforcement in the slab, and the condition of the soil underneath. I am in Florida, we don't have basements. That being said odds are greatly in your favor. Any modern slab should have had the soil underneath compacted, and meet minimum PSI requirements.

I am not an engineer, but I think you would be fine if it was well constructed. Double the studs under each joist to be safe, use blocking like I said, and even put cross bracing on the load bearing wall underneath. Definitely don't hang out under when filling it up.

 

[Johnz]

Also, where your stand up top ends will come into play. The edge of the stand, where all the load will be, needs to fall on top of joist, that is again supported below. Don't want that load bearing point to fall between joists where just the plywood floor decking would be holding the weight. I hope you are an experienced carpenter, or friends with one if you attempt this.

 

[Ripnlips82]

Anything's possible if you throw enough money at it.

Here's another member that had an engineer retrofit a new support for his Red Sea S-850 (about 240 gallons).

Large Build - Trying to "do it right": My RedSea Reefer-S 850

Spent about 5 hours busting rock and starting to build the scape. I’m going to have three structures. Left side will be a large split structure strictly LPS…mostly torches and gonis. Middle structure will be the smallest and likely primarily SPS Right side will be a large structure with a...

www.reef2reef.com

Thank you sir for your reply.

Anything's possible if you throw enough money at it.

Here's another member that had an engineer retrofit a new support for his Red Sea S-850 (about 240 gallons).

Large Build - Trying to "do it right": My RedSea Reefer-S 850

Spent about 5 hours busting rock and starting to build the scape. I’m going to have three structures. Left side will be a large split structure strictly LPS…mostly torches and gonis. Middle structure will be the smallest and likely primarily SPS Right side will be a large structure with a...

www.reef2reef.com

No way I can spend $5800 on supporting this tank. Looks like I will be talking to an engineer after all. I absolutely do not want insurance to be able to say it won't be covered, if something terrible was to happen. If no other option is available or cost effective, I will cut a hole and stick it in the garage lol. It's starting to look like a better option anyway. I just have to heat and cool it as well. I do have a brick home with insulated exterior walls in the garage but in Kansas we have 100+ summers and up to -20 winters. It's just not the best tank for that setup. I hate the idea a center overflow tank and only utilizing one viewing side.

 

[Ripnlips82]

Also, where your stand up top ends will come into play. The edge of the stand, where all the load will be, needs to fall on top of joist, that is again supported below. Don't want that load bearing point to fall between joists where just the plywood floor decking would be holding the weight. I hope you are an experienced carpenter, or friends with one if you attempt this.

Thank you sir for the reply. I have a GC that also agrees with what you have said, he is just not willing to bet his reputation on it lol. I also have a pool and two dogs, so I replaced the wood floor with lvp. The installers added leveling compound to that room before setting the lvp. This tank may turn that into peanut brittle if I have any deflection. Seems that I have a lot of things fighting me in this install! I am trying to get in touch with the engineer that I spoke with prior about the 240g in the hopes he can assist.

 

[Ripnlips82]

Is there anyone out there that has a 400g+ tank on floor joists, that is willing to share their experience?

 

[o2manyfish]

I had a 300g Tall tank on floor joists, running parrallel without any problems.

One thing to remember is that while the tank weighs alot. The weight isn't in any one spot. Depending on the design of your stand the weight may be transferred down via 8 or 10 legs.

If the tank - weighs 1000lbs Dry. If you measure the interior volume of the tank - the part that fills with water - I'm guessing on the glass thickness but I would imagine your total water volume is just over 400 gallons. At 8.35lbs per gallon you are around 3400lbs - With Rock let's say 5000lbs - Because the rock will displace more water.

If your stand had 10 legs down that becomes only 500lbs each leg is supporting. 500lbs on you floor is nothing, that's like bringing home one of the last call girls from the local bar on Cattle night. If the Downward legs are 4x4 posts that's 16 square inches of surface area the weight is spread across meaning the downward force is only 31psi.

500lbs per leg it not a big deal. If your stand had a full tank permeter brace then that distributes the weight even more.

Going back to you bracing the joists with floor columns. If you line up on the 2 joists closest to the baseline of the tank. Sister them if you have to, and then run a pair of floor columns you should be fine. For these kinds of things it doesn't cost much more to make those posts out of steel which will give you a smaller foot print and upwards to 10x the strength in this application.

Dave B

 

[Ironwill723]

I agree with Dave B...double or triple your floor joists under the tank. Get some lolly columns and a 4x4 going across perpendicular to the floor joists.

 

[McPuff]

I have seen a couple of other reefers cut a hole in the floor so they were able to get a large tank into the basement. Not sure this is something you'd consider but at least you wouldn't have to worry about the floor and you could set it up how you wanted.

 

[Jubei2006]

So my tank is 525 gallons above a basement. One end is on a structural metal I beam. The opposite width and one length is supported by an oversided studded wall tied into an I beam about 2 to 3 feet away. The fish room is built to fully support three sides of the tank and support the floor joists on the unsupported side. No sagging detected over 1 year. It also runs perpendicular to the floor joists. See attached pics and ask away.

 

[Ripnlips82]

Thank you all for the replies and assistance. I found a local engineer to assist and I will be starting a build thread shortly.