My floor seems to be unlevel - how concerned should I be?

[djryan2000]

I set up a JBJ 45 in my upstairs bedroom in may. It’s about 8 inches from a load bearing wall but parallel to my floor joists. I noticed that the tank shakes a little when I bounce near it or my dog scratches / jumps off my bed. I took out a leveling device and put it both on my floor and across the tank and this is what I got -

The part that is sagging is the front.

I’m wondering if I should immediately move the tank to another area of the room so that it is perpendicular to my joists, but aren’t sure if that’s even going to do much. A trip to my basement revealed my joists seem to be 14.5inches apart from each other. However, tank stand is 26.5 x 22 inches - so should moving it to be perpendicular even help if it’s too much weight? Is my only option to downsize to something like a Innovative marine 30?

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

If it’s a curved glass tank then that much tilt it super bad. Had a biocube 32 crack on me in the curve with way less tilt. Even a rect tank with that much dip across it is not good. It may blow a seam. Not sure how prevalent that is in rect tanks but it’s been known to happen. Moving it perpendicular to the joists should help. Civil engineering was my undergrad, if you can distribute that weight across multiple joists you may be able to get some of that tilt out. Also keep in mind right up next to the walls the floor will rise about 1/8” in older houses. Mine does this.

 

[Kershaw]

I I don’t think the weight is the issue but I’m not an engineer. I had a 180 gal on elevated foundation it ran Parallel in between to joists with no issues for 3 years. Had to down size so don’t have that any more. On all my tanks you can see my likes shake a little when large people stomp by it.
there is defiantly an issue with it not being level though that I would address. Maybe get a better more solid Stand.

going to a 30 gal will only change weight 130lbs

 

[PaulieReef]

I would shim it level and inforce the parallel beams.

 

[REEFTIDE]

I highly recommend shimming it to make it level

 

[redfishbluefish]

Two issues….level tank, bouncy floor. The weight of the tank is not an issue because a 45 gallon tank should easily be supported by modern construction.

!. Level Tank: Agree with others, drop the water volume and shim the stand

2. Bouncy floor. This is common with or without a tank. The floor can be stiffened with a couple different ways, but the easiest is to add bridging between the floor joists. What this does is to transfer load to the adjoining joist. I would do this out to a minimum of five “bridges,” Old school, these were wooden “X’s” cut on site and installed. Today some still use wood, but metal premade are available. The other option is to buy a beam the same size of what you have, let’s say 2x10, and cut 14.5 inch lengths and install these as the bridging. This should noticeably reduce bounce.

Examples of bridging:

 

[Uncle99]

Has the level changed from when you installed?
That tank may be 500lbs at most.
Not really an issue for most buildings following local building codes.
I doubt downsizing to 30 would make much a difference.
If the floor going to collapse with 500lb load, then having a couple of adults in your room would do the same, that’s a bigger problem