livingroom floorboards to support 2 ton

[debodeebs]

i currently have a large fish tank with a dimension of 6ft 8 inch length by 2ft 6 inch high by 2ft depth on a mable effect 7ft solid unit.

below is a pic of a crappy looking drawing i did lol. the floorboards run opposite the tank and i have no basement to go and see what joist is what.

i have wooden flooring in the livingroom so its hard for me to check under the floorboards.

my guess is that where the tank is sitting is only 1 joist its sitting on with the floorboards running the other way.

can someone help me out what i should do with a cheapish option if i have to support it as i have no idea what im doing.

cheers

[ayjay]

I don't see any cheap options that are guaranteed to work safely, you could spread the weight over more joists by building a base on top of the floor, but I guess you'll still only be on two joists, possibly three.

Does a cheap option include lifting the floor for access underneath? If it does you need to get more joists in.

If I was starting this from scratch I would use two flitch beams under the tank set on padstones, (a flitch beam is a pair of joists bolted together with a steel plate in between them).

I would be confident that this will take anything you want to put on it.

BTW, I make the water weight about 1700lbs., don't know how much the tank and the unit weigh but I doubt that it's as much as the water.

[big-all]

first thing is to look under the floor for joist sizes
the spans [un supported length]
the centres[distance between centre off 2 joists]
any sleeper walls along the joists
and any notches or holes for pipes and wires
and what the ground is made from

[royaloakcarpentry]

You have to take the wodden floor up, partially anyway. This tank will not be able to be sited on top of the wooden floor as it will stop the floor from expanding over its full width. Thus you will have problems.