will a 150 gallon need a re-enforced floor?

[Pazil]

How old is the house? What type of floor joists?

If they are "I" beams and the span is not more than 12' you should not have any problems. If you are in a newer home you could contact the builder for set of blue prints and figure out your live and dead load capsities from there... But I would at the very least build the stand with a 3/4" plywood base to spread out the load and ensure that it is sitting as per your drawings. With the tank that close to the beam below on your drawing I do not suspect you will have any issues.

[Delphinus]

Not really anything to do with your question, .. but have you considered making it 24" wide and 20" tall? The aquascaping possibilities are better with more depth and you can have the lights closer down.. And maybe the load spread will be a tiny little bit better?

[fooser]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Not really anything to do with your question, .. but have you considered making it 24" wide and 20" tall? The aquascaping possibilities are better with more depth and you can have the lights closer down.. And maybe the load spread will be a tiny little bit better?

This is exactly what I was thinking, Tony! Great minds think alike

[fragNplug]

I agree with what everyone else has said too, and also would like to point out your stand has alot to do with it, if you have a stand that is totally flat on the bottom, eg, a piece of plywood, the weight is distributed more equally across the full area, unlike a stand with just rails or independent legs.

here is a very long artical about floors and load distribution.
http://www.ashireporter.org/articles...es.aspx?id=570

[banditpowdercoat]

The plywood thing is only for the floor itself, not the joists. If you have "rails" on the bottom of your stand, they will spread the load out over the joists. Plywood really does not carry any load when laid flat. It's strength is on edge.

[fragNplug]

i was suggesting plywood as a base, to ensure he was not using just 4 or 6 legs on direct points to the floor.

[banditpowdercoat]

Originally Posted by fragNplug

i was suggesting plywood as a base, to ensure he was not using just 4 or 6 legs on direct points to the floor.

And I'm saying using plywood as a base will have no effect on joist loading. Only on Point pressure on the floor material itself. Acctually, If you had carpet, a plywood base would be a detriment, as it would bow in the middle and not be flat.

[Coleus]

Ok, I am doing a little math to figure out I am not that good at Math btw) so let's see if this makes sense

According to this http://www.tpic.ca/3_specified_loads.pdf, our home floor live load is 1.9 Kpa which is around 40 pounds per square foot.

Your tank is 72x20 so roughly 12 sq ft in total.
Now calculate how many pounds of your tank:
a full water of 150 gallon is approx 1224 lbs
+ 280 lbs (sum) + 100 lbs (stand + equipment)
so that is around 1604 lbs

so 1604 lbs over 12 sqft is 133 lbs per sqft. So you are 83 lbs over per sqft

I am probably wrong here lol
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