I had this concern when I set up 5 tanks on one table (see pic). I got a bunch of friends to stand on the table before I set up the tanks. Their total weight was much more than the 869 pounds of water. You might get a good idea of the ability of your floor by doing a test like that. You can get a lot of weight together in one place with people standing shoulder to shoulder.
Concerned about weight of 125 gallon tank...should I be?
- Thread starter bs6749
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bs6749
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itafx said:
That's actually one of the common misconceptions about floor strength. The weight will be there much longer than the 5 mins that all of the people stood in the same spot.
OP
OP
bs6749
Aquarium Advice Addict
The tank will weigh over 1400lbs...it would be difficult to test at several times this load. I see what you are saying and I had similar thoughts but it isn't accurate.
125 gallon = 72x18x20. That's 9 square feet if you use the smallest possible stand. You could fit 15 people in that space (they would have to be pretty friendly to press in together 
. If an average person is 150 pounds, thats 2,250 pounds for a stress test. That's 1.6 times what it will actually be. Ok, its not 2x or 3x, but it's still a lot more than the floor will have to bear. There ways you could increase your test load beyond this if you really wanted to.
. If an average person is 150 pounds, thats 2,250 pounds for a stress test. That's 1.6 times what it will actually be. Ok, its not 2x or 3x, but it's still a lot more than the floor will have to bear. There ways you could increase your test load beyond this if you really wanted to.crazyderik
Aquarium Advice Regular
It scares me...id be weary. I had to reinforce my floors for my 75... I had a noticable bow in the wooden floor
jsoong
Aquarium Advice Addict
itafx said:125 gallon = 72x18x20. That's 9 square feet if you use the smallest possible stand. You could fit 15 people in that space (they would have to be pretty friendly to press in together
The problem with this approach is that the people will not be there long enough to give a valid result. Wood floor deflects under load over time, somtimes over months. You will not see a sag in the floor in the few minutes that the people will be there. <Even if it did, can you measure a sag of 1/4" - the max allowed under our building code?>
Grossly overloading the floor might test for catastrophic failure (ie tank falling through the floor), which is rare anyhow. Sagging is the main danger. A floor sagging over time will unbalance your tank & cause glass to crack or a seam to seperate ... causing a flood & major damage to the floors underneath.
A cautioning tale: My piano, weighing maybe 1000lb, with a foot print of 2x8', was placed across 3 14' joists, within 3-4' of the load bearing wall underneath. Everything looked fine. But I just discovered (after about 3 years), that the floor had sagged by almost 1" where the piano sat ..... I moved the piano, and now must decide if I want to tear open the basement ceiling to shore up the joists, or live with the dip in the floor .....
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