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Re: Aquarium? |
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| message from Pete C on 17 May 2004 |
Hi,
A bath probably holds that amount of water. If it's in a corner and
across the joints and the stand spreads the load across the floor
there's less chance of problems.
Do the manufacturers have any guidance on this sort of thing?
cheers,
Pete.
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| Marcus Fox replied to Pete C on 17 May 2004 |
LOL, a bath would probably only hold about 150 litres if filled to the very
brim, and this tank would hold 566 litres.
Marcus
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| Marcus Fox replied to Marcus Fox on 18 May 2004 |
Yeah I know, I added a bit onto the weight of 20 cu ft of water (566 l), and
since I doubt very much he will be filling it brim full, I added a
convenient 34kg to make 600kg. Every inch of water he leaves out will be
23.58kg in weight.
Since an empty 180 gallon 72" x 24.5" x 25.625" weighs 338lbs or 153.31kg,
http://www.alysta.com/books/fishtank.htm - couldn't find the 5 ft tank
there though). That tank will be 2 sheets of 72" x 24.5", 2 of 24.5" x
25.625" and one of 72" x 25.625", thats 6628.625 sq inches of glass. That's
23g per sq in glass.
The 5 ft tank will have 3 sheets of 60" x 24" and 2 of 24" x 24" or 5472 sq
in. At 23g per square inch, thats 125.8kg.
Subtract the (very convenient, lol) 34kg from that, gives 91.8kg or 3.9
inches of water.
Doubtless, gravel and rocks will weigh a lot more than the water they will
displace, which must be considered and hard to calculate unless you know
quantities.
I don't know if I'd be able to sleep at night with a tank deeper than 14
inches on my upper floor. Depth of 14 inches gives 68 lb sq ft (plus weight
of glass). Australian building code gives 75 lb sq ft for floor loading
http://www.auspet.com/fish10.html. Couldn't find UK code in psf.
Yeah I know, I filled a tank up on flat concrete in my garden. Cracked base.
Have plated base with a piece using lots of silicone sealant and tank has
been in service for a year with no leaks
When moving my tank I did take the opportunity to scrub it clean in the
garden, as there was a lot of crud in the gravel.
Marcus
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| Andy Hall replied to Marcus Fox on 18 May 2004 |
Be careful if you mix units. It's easy to make a mistake and much
safer to work entirely in SI units.
It depends on the type of rock. I have a marine tank so mainly use
combinations of tufa rock since it helps to buffer the pH upwards.
I don't use gravel, just a thin layer of sand, and then external
filtration.
Gravel cleaners work quite well for that, but obviously can't go below
a separator mesh
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
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| Capitol replied to Marcus Fox on 21 May 2004 |
I can't see a problem to this if the tank is against the wall and the floor
joists are 8x2" or bigger and the joists are at right angles to the tank
long dimension. A cast iron bath is in the region of 200Kg and full of water
is another 200 Kg, then add another 200Kg for the people standing beside it,
I've not seen many bathroom floors bend much under these sort of loadings.
The loading figures you quote are for the complete floor area, you are
really talking about point loading on a floor area. A lot will depend on
the actual unsupported span of the floor joists and the position of the tank
relative to the supporting walls. The building regs gives a good guide to
the actual loading a given joist and span will support. Can you tell us what
the joists and spans actually are?
Interesting query.
Regards
Capitol
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| Marcus Fox replied to Capitol on 22 May 2004 |
Correct me if I'm wrong, lol, but if you put a 200kg person into a bath,
there wouldn't be any room for the water and I doubt they'd be able to get
out again.
Marcus
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| Marcus Fox replied to Marcus Fox on 22 May 2004 |
Doh, didn't read you said people, not person.
Marcus
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| Capitol replied to Marcus Fox on 22 May 2004 |
Yes, I'd worked out that the water overflowed also if the weight of the
people was inside the bath! However, as I said, a lot depends on the
position and the run of the floor joists. ie, a span of 3.46M using a couple
of 8x2" joists with 450mm spacing would appear to be capable of supporting
432.5Kg as a distributed load. If you can get this up to 4 joists, then this
becomes 865Kg. When you get next to the joist supporting wall, about only
half of the load is transferred to the joists so 600Kg looks pretty
feasible. If you have the joists running the other way, but can get across 3
joists( add a bearer) and spread the load then 600Kg is achievable. If your
floor joists are SS grade timber( not likely!) then you can get about a 25%
increase on these figures. Remember that these are "dead load" figures, the
permissible live loading figures are about x3 on top of these numbers.
Regards
Capitol
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