heavy aquarium

Question
Hi my name is jose and I'm loooking to buy a 55gallon aquarium because my fish have outgrown their current aquarium and I was wondering if a 55gallon tank would require me to reinforce the floor?

Answer
Dear Jose,
hmm..This depends on how weak your floor might be. If you are unsure, I would go ahead and reinforce it just to be sure.

Unfortunately I am no expert on judging the weight capacity of a floor. I can say most floors will support normal-size aquariums, but like I said if you have any doubts you should check with a professional contractor or engineer who can examine your situation and tell you whether or not you need reinforce the floor. Now whenever possible, an aquarium should be located so it runs across several floor joists, not on one or between two. That is, it should run perpendicular to the joists not parallel to them. This distributes the considerable weight over several joists and can prevent sagging floors or worse!

If your floor joists are accessible from below, they can be reinforced with braces or with telescoping floor jacks. Of course, if you have a finished basement and are placing the aquarium on a concrete slab, you can have no worries about any cave ins.

I really hope this helps!

Best wishes and Happy fishkeeping!
Karen~