My 225g Build Thread

Today I took on the task of shoring up the flooring underneath the setup.

 

Opened up the floor jacks and started to pre-assemble them:

 

Simple enough; a couple of carriage bolts and a heavy duty screw riser for each jack post. I prepped everything I would need for the job - brought in my 2 concrete support blocks, the 8 ft 4X6 header post, a large wrench to turn the screw risers, a spotlight in case the single bulb down there wasn't bright enough (it wasn't).

 

Went down inside the basement (technically a "crawlspace" since there is no floor other than dirt - but it's 7.5 feet deep down there) and discovered an issue I hadn't considered. The tank is sitting parallel to the  floor joisting instead of perpendicular as I had (incorrectly) thought. That meant the entire weight of the setup would be spread over only 1 or maybe 2 joists  instead of 4 or 5... It also meant I would have to rethink the application of the single header post in a different direction.

 

What I decided was to cut the post into (2) 4 ft sections and run those perpendicular to the affected joist(s) and support each post with 1 floor jack. The floor joist closest to the wall is actually set upon the concrete foundation and fully supported its entire length, so I didn't have to worry about adding support to that one. The 2nd joist is 16" away and would bear the majority of the dead weight as it is the only joist directly under the setup. The 3rd joist is another 16" apart (32" from the foundation wall) and so ended up clearing the actual "footprint" of the stand by about 3 inches (the 24" wide stand is about 5" from the wall behind it), but having a 4ft post section meant I could support that joist as well. In all, I would be able to distribute the load stress over 3 joists using the posts and jacks vs. having almost 100% of the load on only 1 joist if I did not add any support... and IMO putting close to 2 tons of load on only 1 joist without any added support would be a bad, baaaad idea

 

The end result looks like this:

 

There are 3 joists total; the 1st is hidden by the foundation wall but is also fully supported by that wall. The 2nd is the major load-bearer because the tank is over that single joist alone. The 3rd clears the stand by maybe 3 inches but I have it supported by the header posts anyway since it will function to "assist" with bearing some of the stress. The floor jacks are not directly under the 2nd joist; they are offset about 2 inches because that is the measurement of the center of the tank (front to back) - but I may rethink that placement since the joist is the actual "contact point" for the load, and it might be smarter to orient the jacks directly under that 2nd joist rather than the exact numerical center of the load where there is no joist). The jacks are spaced 2 feet apart, meaning they are under the tank at the 2 ft mark and the 4 ft mark of the 6ft long tank... I got the distances by simply measuring the location of  the tank upstairs and then marking it out on the foundation wall directly underneath.

 

The bottom of the jack posts are set upon 2 heavy concrete supports as shown here:

 

 

Here is a final shot of the whole set up:

 

All together I spent about 90 minutes setting everything up and tightening the screw risers and carriage bolts, and the total cost was under $100. I figured it's money well spent for peace of mind...