The wall underneath rest on a concrete slab I think, they is no floor underneath the wall.
Don't think, only be sure, we're talking about a whole house collapsing!
Thanks for the input. I'm still going to leave it open though, I want to hear other opinions.
Anyways, I've done my research, and I'm going to put another tank in the third floor on my town house complex!
Because there is no floor plans for me as well, I can only take general rules and precaution!
Hope i can help you with what I've learnt!
Weight can only be spread evenly if you use a flat wooden stand, even if you have the four joist stand with a plywood underneath, weight is still distributed around the area, but still not evenly!
A regular household usualy holds 40lb/sqft, if it's near the joist or the main support walls that goes from top to the very bottom of the household, it usually doubles the weight to 80lb/sqft, still, this isn't exact, only a general rule and an approximate!
Lets say for me... I'm planning on doing 2 x 4ft tank
Take will be on flat base wooden stand, so with two, it will be 2ft x 4 ft stands, I do a guess on the tank now, 60 gallons per tank, 120 gallon, 100lb's per gallon, then i add 100lb's per tank for gravel, another 50lb's per stand!
This is rougly 750lb's per tank!
Spread across a foot spring of 16 sq ft, so weight would be estimated at around 90lb's per square foot!
Okay, so I have it on the third floor, where the main support's are, and it is known that it's only 80lb's per sqft, but doesn't mean I can't put it there!
Reason being, I will never know exactly how much weight that area can support, and I say that it's 16sq ft area, but is weight really spread like that? or can more weight push through the floor across the floor? I'll never know unless someone with crazy expertise can calculate! Also, the floor is around 800 sqft, so if I times that by 40lbs, that's 32000lb's my floor is suppose to support, so after some hard hard thinking, 1500lb's on one area doesn't seem to be too bad for me!
But two things people have asked me that pushed me to try this:
People have baby grand pianos in there house for years... I dun hear collapse floors?
How often do you hear a collapse floor?
Ofcourse, I'm also not telling you to put a 500 gallon tank, and NO, i'm not telling you that 180gallon is safe! I am only giving you what I've learnt, a long decision with friends and experts to find what I can do and what I can't do!
At the end, it all depends on how big of a tank are you planning on? And how much weight can your house support?
Anyways, good luck!
And if i'm wrong in any way people, please correct me!