Here's a weird one for you!

[james@wildreef.com]

I need to build an aquarium stand for a new tank I'm building.

The tank is going to be 96" long and 48" deep. The height I guess doesn't matter to the stand. I just know it will weigh about 8000 lbs.

I really don't know how to weld, so I'm wanting to make it out of wood.

Any help is very much appreciated.

Thank you,
James

[ndemge]

48" deep? wow, awsome tank! 3/4" glass?

I don't know what you actually need to support this, but I'm assuming large timber with big bots, someone in the know can chime in...

What state are you in? I've got a welder :)

[james@wildreef.com]

I live in Dallas, Tx

[Rich]

Will your glass be self supporting? I mean at the corners will the caulk joint be able to hold itself together or will it need a wood corner support?
You're probably going to need to built it just like a residential floor. Double 2x10's at the outside with 2x10 floor joists with 4x4 or 6x6 corner posts.
I just don't know what you want it to look like :)

[james@wildreef.com]

Well, here's a layout of the room and you can see the tanks.

http://www.wildreef.com/item_detail.asp?product_id=578&product_name=Layout%20of%20My%20Future%20Fish%20Ro om

The big tank will be a total of 10' long and 5.5 ft wide. I'm wanting the tank to be a total of 30" off the ground.

The smaller tank will be roughly 4'x4' or a little smaller....like the larger tank, we are wanting to make this tank 30" off the ground.

I started this thread based only on the large tank. We now have decided to put the smaller tank next to it with a bridge between the two.

Thanks,
James

[Rich]

So 10' Long x 5'-6" Wide x 4' Tall
That equals 1645 Gallons at a weight of 14103 lbs. I sure hope you are building it on a concrete slab (6" concrete slab at that).
256 psf :shock: if it's just sitting on the floor. Add another 10psf for the materials to build the structure - 266psf.
Let's say there are going to be 3 walls running along the 10' length - that takes the line load to 470psf along those walls.
You don't even want to think about point loads.
Have you thought about pouring a concrete block and setting it on that? You could wrap the outside of the block with wood or something to make it look nice.. and I'm being totally serious here. No standard home is going to handle that type of weight unless you have a footing going from solid soil all the way to the bottom of the tank.
Can you give us some insight into how your home is constructed?

[james@wildreef.com]

Well, after talking to several people over the last week...espeically our next door neighbor which builds homes. We have come to a conclusion to make it all out of cement and rebar. But I was hoping to actually get away with some wood.

the slab this tank will be sitting is from the 1950's. So, I have really no idea about how thick it is. My neighbor said it should work since Its going over distance and not all in a single point. hmmm.... by the way, it's the garage slab. We turned the garage into a room since you can't actually park in it with a truck and if you wanted to park in it you would be doing that 3 point parking just to get into the garage. Needless to say, we never used it and made it part of our house.

Thanks,
James

[Rich]

I see. I don't know if it wouldn't be a good idea to cut the slab (if it's that old) and place a decent footing under it. At 256 psf plus the weight of the glass - that's pretty substantial for any slab.
Look at it this way - you have concrete that is probably spanning at least the 19+' from foundation wall to foundation wall - the concrete slab will need to account for it.. the concrete slab will hold it without cracking if it was placed on enough concrete. But it's not - it's on soil which will give with the extra weight and will eventually crack it..
So it's not just the compressive strength of concrete that you have to worry about (which btw would easily hold that amount of weight) it's the bending of the concrete which isn't much at all.

[james@wildreef.com]

I'm thinking of doing this to prevent that.

For example. The large tank will be roughly 10 feet long. Every two feet I was going to make a 6" wide and 30" tall and 5' deep wall for the 5 inch slab that I would build to sit on.

In retrospect, I would actually frame the outside walls and drill 8 inches into the current slab for the rebar to sit in. Then I would build the center area for the internal under supporting walls and the tank bottom as one. I would then put rebar in each of the under supporting walls and the tank bottom rebar will reach into the oustide walls for more support. After I'm done with this, I'm going to then pour the concrete into the bottom half of the tank. From their I will finish pouring the upper external walls. Then I would put the glass into the tank to finish pouring the top front wall bracing. All the walls will be 6inches. So, I should have plenty of support.

Now to carry on the aquarium, we are going to go another few more feet and basically create a second aquarium that the first aquarium will overflow into. So, basically I will have roughly 17ft of tank. The room stretches a total of 23.5 ft. You can see the rough layout here....

http://www.wildreef.com/item_detail.asp?product_id=578&product_name=Layout%20of%20My%20Future%20Fish%20Ro om

By the way, the house is actually a peir and beem house. But the garage and the driveway is all slab. Believe it or not, the slab only on the drive way has any cracks and they are very minor. The garage slab has no cracks and plenty of car grime which I'm working on getting up. So, at once someone did park their cars in the garage. Just not us.

Any comments you have, please let me know. I can't always see from all angles. Especially this being my very first super large project.

Thanks,
James

[Cole]

I've got guys you could use, pm for details!