Tank weights and 2nd floors

[FishyReef]

Hi Everyone!

Well, it looks like I might have to move my tank in the coming months out of my office and am trying to figure out whether it is feasible to move it home, or whether I need to break it down entirely. Its a 90g tank with a 20g refugium. My condo is on the second floor so I wouldn't be able to put any sort of bracing under the floor since there is a unit below me. The construction is solid, but from the late 70s, with some sloping in the floor (I'd have to shim it for sure). What do you guys think, could a 2nd floor handle a 90g tank without reinforcement, or is this too close to call without having a structural engineer evaluate it?

Thanks!

 

[Bryanb]

Hi Everyone!

Well, it looks like I might have to move my tank in the coming months out of my office and am trying to figure out whether it is feasible to move it home, or whether I need to break it down entirely. Its a 90g tank with a 20g refugium. My condo is on the second floor so I wouldn't be able to put any sort of bracing under the floor since there is a unit below me. The construction is solid, but from the late 70s, with some sloping in the floor (I'd have to shim it for sure). What do you guys think, could a 2nd floor handle a 90g tank without reinforcement, or is this too close to call without having a structural engineer evaluate it?

Thanks!

I find as long as it is over more than one floor joist it isn't too big of a problem. And I have lived in some old places. If you know the people down stairs I would ask them if you could look In Their house for load bearing walls or even better a structural beam in the ceiling of their place.

 

[Scaly]

I find as long as it is over more than one floor joist it isn't too big of a problem. And I have lived in some old places. If you know the people down stairs I would ask them if you could look In Their house for load bearing walls or even better a structural beam in the ceiling of their place.

 

[Scaly]

That seems like sound advice to me. If you had say, a 55...I'd say you could pretty much put that anywhere. BUT a 90 + 20, that's closing in on some serious weight. Your pushing past 900 lbs now. Like Bryanb said, get friendly with the downstairs neighbors. Once you locate the load-bearing walls, remember that the floor joists are going to run perpendicular to them. With a 90, assuming that's a 48" tank, you can at least get across two joists. If the construction is 16 on center, with some tricky measuring...you might catch three joists. Either way, near a load-bearing wall...you'll be fine.

 

[Big K]

In a multi-family residential condo building there probably aren't any load bearing walls within a single condo. They are all the perimeter walls for each unit usually. The units are often exact copies of each other so Bryan's walls will fall directly over the underneath units walls. I'd go down to their unit to check it out.

If you had the tank backed up to an outside wall you'd probably be safe since those are load bearing by default. Just avoid backing it up to a wall you have access to on both sides within your own unit.

 

[FishyReef]

Up here in Boston, our "condos" come in many different forms and often aren't the big complexes like elsewhere in the country ;) Mine is in fact the second floor of a two family building (two identical units one on top of the other with separate entrances), so I have 4 outside walls, along with (what I understand to be) two center load bearing walls that flank a hallway (at least that's what the contractor who redid my bathroom told me). The downstairs unit is identical to mine, and then we have a basement/garage below that. If I do have to move the tank, then it would go next to an outside wall in the living room. I assume the floor joists run perpendicular to the front and back outside walls (they did in the bathroom we just had redone), but without tearing up the floor, how would I know for sure? Also, how can I figure out if the construction is 16 on center? This house was built in the late '70s.

 

[Bryanb]

Can you see the joists in the basement if is I would put money on the floor joists in your place run the same direction and are same spacing. Also if they ran front to back in the bathroom they doo in the whole house barring and later additions as for the spacing find to wall studs next to each other and measure them. Hope this helps. Then there is plan B which Is just a gamble as in place it and hope.