HCA: Hermit Crab Association

I have a empty 75 gallon aquarium that would make a great crabitiat but I worry about the weight in my old house that has a basement, wouldn't want it to fall through the floor. Any way to reduce weight while providing deep enough substrate?

Structural engineer will come and assess. Keeping the tank on a solid base instead of keeping it on a stand that has legs can help. Also placing the tank over the floor joists can help.

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Sadly, no. There are a few things you can do to help with weight distribution - make sure that it's perpendicular to the floor joists that you can see from the basement, the more joists the tank rests on the better. Another thing is to put it against a wall that has a supporting wall underneath it in the basement, this helps keep the joists from bowing and means they can handle more weight. If you're really worried about the weight, buy a 4x4 support beam and a support joist from a home improvement center (probably around $50) and put it in place directly under where the tank will sit before you move the tank into place. That will support the weight of the tank instead of your floors!

Also, if you really want to read into it and either make yourself feel better or scare yourself out of the idea (based on how well your house is constructed) this is the article on aquarium weight and floors, written by a structural engineer: http://www.african-cichlid.com/Structure.htm

And, because it has to be said in every topic in any forum dealing with heavy aquariums - I have around 1200 pounds on the second floor of my 111 year old house spread across 8 joists and it hasn't failed. (**That doesn't mean it won't at some point in the future**)

Geez that's a scary thought. The crabitat falling through the floor


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I lived in a 125+ yr old house. My brother had TWO 120 gal tanks in the attic (2 ROOMS)
Told no one. Thank god nothing happened. When i think back on how an aquarium full of glass, fish/rocks, water etc theoretically could have crashed thru my bedroom ceiling at any moment ( but never did) it makes you believe in ALIENS

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CrabMater wrote:I lived in a 125+ yr old house. My brother had TWO 120 gal tanks in the attic (2 ROOMS)
Told no one. Thank god nothing happened. When i think back on how an aquarium full of glass, fish/rocks, water etc theoretically could have crashed thru my bedroom ceiling at any moment ( but never did) it makes you believe in ALIENS

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Hahaha! [about the ALIENS] Seriously, so glad you're all right.

Yeah [sweats] that was more than 10 years ago and retelling that story brought me bsck to the blood chilling horror of finding those secret tanks.

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My house is 80+ yrs old and the basement doesn't have any walls, it's a small open dirt floor type.
I might be able to put up a couple braces, if not, I'll just stick to my 30 gallon tank.
Thanks for the advice.

Crazy stories! How do you "hide" two tanks of that size?!!! Can you imagine the things that could be hidden in an old house?!!! And a dirt basement?!! I would love a basement!! I would love an old house! Well, not if I couldn't have my tanks!


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Honestly, the older houses are usually overbuilt. It's the housing between 1920 and 1990 that you have to worry about, because they either scrimped on materials to save money, or they built it to carefully designed specs that didn't take extra weight into account. As long as the old houses don't have joist damage, (looking to move now and I've been shocked at how many that do) they can pretty much support anything anywhere.

Yes, old houses were totally over built. When i think of the SIZE of those tanks. But i had access to the basement and our framework was immense.
Now days everything is made of paper mache.
The tanks were "hidden" bc they were on the 3rd floor, moved in while no one was home (vacation) and no one was "allowed" up there. He dumped the water w a pump out the window into the garden so no one knew when he drained them. And into the closet they went. Until i discovered them. [FLUSHED FACE]

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Brilliant about dumping the water out of the window. I've done that just so I wouldn't have to carry more buckets.

And here I thought I was 'all that' for sneaking in a complete 20 gallon aquarium while my mom was sleeping. I had it in the middle of my room and when she came in and noticed a few days later she didn't talk to me for a full three weeks....

Window dumping is far less work than buckets. I do the same on my fish tank, which means i can easily do large scale water changes quickly and less mess. Added to the hose connection, waterchange day is easy....

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Man, I thought I was smooth sneaking rats & cage past my parents. You people put me to shame. (I'm going to tell my mum she was lucky - I could have been smuggling much larger setups into my closet as a kid.)

GotButterflies wrote:Crazy stories! How do you "hide" two tanks of that size?!!! Can you imagine the things that could be hidden in an old house?!!! And a dirt basement?!! I would love a basement!! I would love an old house! Well, not if I couldn't have my tanks!


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Basement? What's that? In FL if we had basements they would eventually become aquariums.