Tank Cracked and the Worst Has Happened

[waterworld]

After reading the posts with all of your thoughts and input on the cause of my failure I have come to the conclusion that this was a situation where there was probably overall settling in the house, as it was new. Result was the tank the was twisted corner to corner and reached its breaking point.
Well S*&% happens.
After much debate about getting out of this hobby I decided to go the Nano tank route.....for about 2 hours...So I am in the market for a new 125. My deciding factor was while walking through Lowes without thinking and by habit I veered towards the plumbing aisle to browse. That is sick and I do not think I would admit it to anyone but I guess it means I still have it in my blood. Another factor is two days after this happened my 15 year old son told me he missed the tank and wanted another one.
So I am in the process of getting lumber to sister my floor joist to beef those up and getting the walls painted, second time in 3 weeks, so I can get a new tank on order. My plan is to sister the joist using 3/4" OSB or plywood on each side of the joist. If I used 2 x 10's I would have to relocate a LOT of plumbing, heating and electrical due to the thickness. There is Just enough room and slack in almost all areas that I can squeeze in the 3/4" thickness and get it glued and screwed in place. I was also concerned about putting more "green" lumber in the way of 2 X 10's into the formula here.
The OSB floor dried OK and did not seem to be effected by the water. Pulling the carpet up ASAP and getting it sucked up probably meant not having to replace the floor boards. New carpet is due in a week.
I do not think I will increase tank size at all it seems like going even 25-50 gallons more in capacity jumps the price of the tank $200 -$300 and I have already taken a good hit on this fiasco.
So my new one will be reef ready with overflows. That will be better than the U-siphon overflows I did have and maybe I can expand my horizons!
SO I am going to pay extra attention to level, square and flatness to get things "pumping" again.
I do have some questions on the AGA brand overflows vs. the Perfecto style. Not sure what the differences are but would appreciate anyone's help with that. I will post such inquiries in the Lighting & Eq forum seperate from this one.
I appreciate everyones time, efforts and suppoort what a great group of people.
Also thanks to zsqure for "babysitting" my fishies until I am back at it as well as SCSInet, acrylic, turningtim, dingo0772 for your time in contributing with your expertise. To everyone that has viewed and posted again thanks. By the way AGA was great at replying to my questions to them and supplying me with their thoughts as well keep them in mind when making your purchases. The shame about these forums is not being able to look someone in the eye to say thanks in person!
Well enough of the sappy stuff. I need to go rub my wife's feet as I have a lot of paying back to do to her because of this! She has been awesome through this and tonight I don't have to sleep in the doghouse.
Tomorrow I get to go and browse the plumbing department to build my own Durso, Let's see if I try to add this here and change that ...hmmmmm.
Keep your eyes open you never know what will happen to me next. Knock on wood and put on your swim fins!!
Back to it, if anyone has any info on the AGA vs. the Perfecto style built in overflows I would appreciate that.
See Ya,
WW

 

[ukcats]

Home Depot just sold a couple hundred more levels across the country...thanks to this thread! Thank God for level concrete basement floors!

 

[scsinet]

On another note, some people have made reference to an aquarium being a live load. This is not true.
Yes it is. Live load refers to anything brought in by a homeowner that is not a part of the house. Furniture, televisions, aquariums, humans, etc are all live loads. A floor's live load capacity refers to it's capacity to support anything that's not a part of the house.

 

[scsinet]

Originally Posted by Waterworld
... well he said a lot of things...
At first read I wondered about using OSB to sister the joists... but then I remembered that silentfloor type joists use this and are stronger than equally sized dimensional lumber, so I don't know... Usually, plywood is stronger than OSB, so I wonder if OSB is truly the ideal material choice, or if the manufacturers use it because it's cheap and "strong enough"

I don't think there is a great difference between the two styles of overflows. The details of overflows aside, they all work pretty much the same way. I have an AGA tank myself, and I'm happy with the overflows.
One thing I do know is you will be happier with the built in overflows. You can set the tank closer to the wall, they are quieter, look nicer, and operate far more reliably.

 

[flricordia]

just talking to a guy at the LRS yesterday that had discovered a small chip down in the corner of a 400 something made out in Pascagoula I believe. The company that made it told him it would be fine when he called telling them of the chip before filling it. It eventually began cracking and traveled across the front. Needless to say same thing happened to his floor.
Sorry about the loss.

 

[waterworld]

I pulled the trigger on the new 125 today and it will arrive in a week. I had gone to the local LFS today just to scout the options as they are typically WAY over priced but they impressed me by actually being $40 less on the tank than the discounter 2.5 hours away where I thought I would end up going. In "negotiations" with the LFS I got 2 Mega Flow kits to plumb the tank two for the rice of one. The kits look like they are top notch and will do the job.
So now I need to get busy with the structural work so I will be ready to go. I have some bioballs and a few pieces of live rock brewing in a small tank in the basement with a damsel and clown that I am hoping will "seed" the tank when I get it set-up to kick the cycling into gear.
Wrapped up all of the repainting today so step by step I am getting there!
I am going to do some checking on the OSB vs. Plywood to see which way to go on laminating the floor joist.
By the way to all of you that have bought levels recently to check your tank, I DO NOT work for a level manufacturing company
WW

 

[turningtim]

As far as structure goes, the OSB (TJI) floor joists are just as strong as dimensional lumber b/c of the laminate I-beam construction. They are also "Green" and can be easily manufactured to any given length w/o breaks or seams.
Ply is stronger than sheet OSB but I would think that 7/16" OSB on either side of the TJI would be more than enough to stiffen them up. Glued and screwed. I would also recommend placing a 1' spline covering the seams glued and screwed and stagger the seams along any one joist. Probably wouldn't hurt to place cross bracing in between the joists under where the tank is going to sit. This will disperse the load better.
JMO
Tim