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Tank weight and building codes


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Not sure if which board this should go under, so here.

I have an aquaponics system based on three 75 liters tanks and a 100 liters grow bed. Filled in with water and media the whole thing weighs under 400kg.

The twist is that the system is located in a second floor apartment... When I originally built it, I got some numbers for room carry capacity from building codes (from internets that is :)) that indicated it won't be too bad if the building was up to code. I put it near the wall shared with the bathroom, since that would have a good chance to have additional support. 

Now this microcosm of guppies and kale must vacate the room (who knew kids need their own rooms? :))...

There is no other place beside the bathroom I can move it to, basically the only viable place is one of internal living-room walls. This is the biggest room in the apartment and if I kinda throw my weight around in the center of it (not quite jumping), I feel the floor flexing. Doesn't instill confidence, even though total capacity of the room supposed to be higher.

Anybody has an experience with just how much weight one could get away with in a 20 year-old condo apartment in Calgary?

 

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You'll be fine, people don't really start adding extra support until 125+ gallons.

Also you said it's split into 4 parts? So the weight would be more spread out than a single large tank footprint.

Moving/jumping around won't help you determine much, you may be suprised how much force you can create with a heavy object moving only a couple of inches.

Do your best to spread the weight evenly across the floor joists, if you can't see them from below you can use a stud finder.

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It's a single stand with grow bed on top, two tanks in the middle and one (sump) below, effectively laying on two 8 feet 1x4 boards flat-side to the floor. So fairy well distributed. 

Thanks, I didn't think stud finder would work on floor joists, have to try it when I get my hands on one... Didn't want to place it all on one joist in the middle and have bunch of friends stand around at the same time...

If I recall correctly, minimum capacity is something like 40lb per square feet, so technically the room is good for 2-3k lb total, but who knows how heavy friends can be...

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