Biggest tank safely in a condominium?

[swffan]

Hopefully someone here has had tanks in condos or even apartments. What is the biggest tank I could safely have given the weight in one spot?

[Brian Ward]

Any size should be possible. If you have wood floor joists, be sure you place it across the joists (if your joists are on 18" centers, a 6' tank would go across approximately 5 of them. If you live in a commercial high-rise (like in Clarendon/Ballston area) then you likely have concrete flooring and I wouldn't expect this to be a concern.

 

Remember this isn't a point load, it's a distributed load. a 180 gal tank should have about 1800# of water and weights somewhere around 500# (I know it's less, but let's go with that). That's a total of 2300#. Spread across 5 floor joists, that's the same as 500# per joist which is easily accommodated.

[zygote2k]

I maintain a 375g, 1" acrylic tank on the 5th floor of a condo overlooking the Iwo Jima Memorial. Solid concrete floors.

[zygote2k]

Any size should be possible. If you have wood floor joists, be sure you place it across the joists (if your joists are on 18" centers, a 6' tank would go across approximately 5 of them. If you live in a commercial high-rise (like in Clarendon/Ballston area) then you likely have concrete flooring and I wouldn't expect this to be a concern.

 

Remember this isn't a point load, it's a distributed load. a 180 gal tank should have about 1800# of water and weights somewhere around 500# (I know it's less, but let's go with that). That's a total of 2300#. Spread across 5 floor joists, that's the same as 500# per joist which is easily accommodated.

This is all true, but depending on how old your wooden floor joists are depends on how much you want your tank to visibly move when you walk past it or carry something heavy past it. I live in a 46 yr old condo with 18" joists and I wouldn't dream of putting anything larger than 125g anywhere in it.

[jjk_reef00]

+1 above, for wooden floor joists anything above a 125 scares me unless you really know what you are looking at.

A 375 on the 5th floor is awesome! They must have a really big elevator, or you have some really nice friends to carry that beast up the stairs

[smallreef]

I had a 18 year old condo... put a 150g on my second floor against the adjoining wall....