Looking to upgrade my tank, but my tank is on the second story of an apartment. How much weight is too much. The tank currently sits in the corner and the wall behind it is complete concrete, but unsure about the floor joints.
I am not structural engineer and it's probably best to consult one. They are typically $100 bucks an hour with a 4 hour minimum. It's money well spent TBH. I have dealt with a few of them on some of my builds.
How big are you looking to go? The typical floor is designed for 40 PSF of live load. Need total weight of the item and how much SQ/FT will this tank cover. WIll need direction of joist and where you planning to put it.
For example, most bathrooms tubs are double joist because the calculations of water + tub + people + whatever on it, exceeds 40PSF.
Say it's 120 gallons*8.35. That's about 1002 lbs in water + glass (maybe 250 and studs, say 300). That's 1300 lbs that you will have to share on that floor.
1300/(3x4)=108.33 psf. That exceeds your typical 40 PSF. At that point, you have to take a look at span, the spacing of the joist, the joist size and the joist type (I joist? Douglas fir?), is it but up against a load bearing wall, how many joist will it be sitting on, etc. This is where the calculator comes in! https://www.wclib.org/resources/calculators/maximum-span/
But ya consult a structural. I always get it signed off by structural because I can blame them if they screw up.
