120 gallon? Yes!

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cloudhands
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Post by cloudhands » Thu Jan 07, 2010 8:22 pm

The tank would go about two feet on the other side of the "beam." The spray foam is about 4 or 5 feet away from the "beam."

cloudhands
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Post by cloudhands » Thu Jan 07, 2010 9:09 pm

It seems the total span of those joists from the outside wall (foundation) to where kate marked my knocking on the "beam" is about 6.5 feet (from above). From below, the "beam" to the spray foam is more like 4.5 or 5 feet. I don't think there's supposed to be a foot of spray foam, but there does look like a lot of it.

I think the tank would pretty well go right in the middle of that span, or a bit toward the "beam."

Katy
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Post by Katy » Fri Jan 08, 2010 5:56 pm

Kind of scary, but we are picking it up tomorrow.

Won't fill it until the engineering work is done...

Katy
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Post by Katy » Sat Jan 09, 2010 7:51 pm

:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

We just brought it home. Is only 10F out, and dropping fast, so couldn't really leave it out in the car, so we had to bring it in ourselves. Wow it's big!!!

Stand is still on top of the car.

Katy
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Post by Katy » Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:51 am

I know the stand has been supporting it, and was made for it, but it doesn't look sturdy enough!

Yes, I am scared....

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Keith Wolcott
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Post by Keith Wolcott » Sun Jan 10, 2010 8:56 am

Glad that you got the 120. In the long run, you will be glad that you did.

Let's see pictures of the tank and stand and maybe we can have an idea of whether the stand is built well enough or not.

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JonasBygdemo
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Post by JonasBygdemo » Sun Jan 10, 2010 10:42 am

Hope your floor doesn't cave in! I agree with Keith, you'll probably be happy you bought a big tank. When we bought our 120L, we wanted a bigger one by the time we had filled it with water.

I'm going to build a stand for our next tank (375L), which I think will be both stronger, and less expensive than a factory-made one. How it'll look is another thing :roll:

Diana
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Post by Diana » Sun Jan 10, 2010 11:17 am

Your floor looks better supported than it sounded at first.
38 tanks, 2 ponds over 4000 liters of water to keep clean and fresh.

Happy fish keeping!

cloudhands
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Post by cloudhands » Sun Jan 10, 2010 2:26 pm

I'm not worried about the stand. It's minimal construction all right, but I think it's strong enough. All the (thin) wood will bear the weight straight down, and it won't buckle. There's a big span across the top though -- support at each end and the middle only!

The tank is thick glass and tempered glass at that.

Now I've just got to go to sears to buy some jacks, and buy some styrofoam or see what I've got in the garage.

Katy
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Post by Katy » Tue Jan 12, 2010 6:53 pm

Image

Image

There it is!

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Keith Wolcott
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Post by Keith Wolcott » Tue Jan 12, 2010 9:49 pm

It looks really nice!

cloudhands
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Post by cloudhands » Thu Jan 14, 2010 10:45 am

I bought the smallest floor screw jacks that home depot had (they were
the only place open at the hour of my errand run). Unfortunately I
bought them without measuring the distance of floor to joist. Floor
jacks minimum of 19 inches, actual distance is 13 inches. If I keep
them I'll have to excavate, which isn't impossible.

the other option is to just get a PT 2 x 12 and also make PT wedges. Drive
the wedges between the concrete pavers I bought and the 2 x 12 until it's
pushing the beam. Seem reasonable? I might also have to somehow block around the 2x12 at the top to keep it stable in the vertical plane, so it won't buckle or collapse.

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Keith Wolcott
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Post by Keith Wolcott » Thu Jan 14, 2010 2:02 pm

I think that could work, but it might be a lot harder to get the support really solid with wedges as opposed to just jacking it up. I see they are not listed at Home Depot, but the source company for the jack posts has a smaller size that goes from 12 to 15 inches. It might be worth ordering them. See

http://www.tigerbrandjackpost.com/super_s.htm

Just a thought. It is so much easier and you get a better result if you have the right tool.

Katy
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Post by Katy » Wed Feb 03, 2010 7:41 pm

Mr. Cloudhands spent a whole day under there in the 15" crawlspace gettign the floor jacks in, then we filled it partially, and started planting it. Monday was fish rodeo day, and here is the tank now:

Image

Still have a lot of work to do on the aquascaping, especially as the last piece of driftwood was hastily thown in as loaches were falling out of it :roll:, but the fishies seem VERY happy to have all this room to swim )

glenna
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Post by glenna » Wed Feb 03, 2010 8:25 pm

yeah!!
beautiful work!
what a lovely stand (I really love the color) and a great bit of breathing room for the loaches (also well supported from beneath, I understand)

congrats! That is a really lovely set up and a lot of sweat and hardwork that has come to fruition. ENJOY!!!!!

EXACTLY what fish do you have in there at this point?
What are your plans with all that space!!!
glenna

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