diy stand
- Thread starter JustReefIt14
- Start date
i want the stand to be sturdy enough to hold the tank, water, sand, and everything thing else. i'm setting this up to do a small reef. the lfs where i work has the stand made for the tank, but for only $200. that's still too much with my 20% employer discount. i will look at the suggested thread and see what i can come up with though. thank you guys and i appreciate all your help!
$200!!!
Stands can be built for next-to-nothing and are guaranteed to be sturdier than virtually any mainstream commercial aquarium stand.
I'll preface with: check furniture stores first, especially small ones. Sometimes you can find a perfect size trunk or end table that is built like a tank and really suits your room. Otherwise, DIY!
Louey posted the link to the 120 stand I just finished but it's way overengineered even for my tank. If you skim the top photos, you could get by rather easily with a frame made of single 2x4s (use 2x6 if you want it a little extra tough).
For the legs, stand them up so that the frame is sitting on them! (See my thread where I cut that peg-ended piece for the center legs - that was overkill and a waste that I wouldn't repeat if I had to do it again) That's about the only common mistake I see in a lot of stands (and virtually every commercial stand I ever put together when I did my tour in an LFS) - the legs are BESIDE the top frame so that you can screw them together.
Of course, that makes sense, right? If you sit the leg UNDER the frame, then you can't screw them together (because you can't screw into wood by going down the grain - it just doesn't hold)... Wrong! What that ends up doing is putting all the weight of your tank onto the screws or bolts that are holding the top frame to the legs. Screws are mighty tough, but if it's sitting directly on the wood, it would have to compress that wood to come down.... A Sherman tank might have enough mass to do that - an aquarium sure doesn't.
Another great structural favour you can do yourself is to have solid (or nearly so) sides and back. Reason for that is obvious if you have a bit of a mean streak. Go to any tank that's full of water and sitting on a commercial stand. Go up alongside it and kick it. The top of the stand will move left, the bottom will stay still, the screws will rip out and the whole thing will collapse. Those stands work under the assumption that bumps, earthquakes, and stupid accidents won't happen.. They can, and as the stand ages, that risk only becomes worse as the materials get older. When you have solid sides, the stand cannot torque from side force.. It's too much like a cube now. If you can't do solid sides, even a partial cover (a skirt) that goes from the top to a portion down will work wonders.
That's my opinion anyways - formed mainly from my experience in woodwork and listening to my father who has worked with wood his entire life... And also from kicking stands at work.
I could draw up some simple and ugly diagrams if you're interested - I'm not sure what level of DIY experience/determination you've got though.
Others may (and I hope they do!) disagree with me and may chime in other advice.
Stands can be built for next-to-nothing and are guaranteed to be sturdier than virtually any mainstream commercial aquarium stand.
I'll preface with: check furniture stores first, especially small ones. Sometimes you can find a perfect size trunk or end table that is built like a tank and really suits your room. Otherwise, DIY!
Louey posted the link to the 120 stand I just finished but it's way overengineered even for my tank. If you skim the top photos, you could get by rather easily with a frame made of single 2x4s (use 2x6 if you want it a little extra tough).
For the legs, stand them up so that the frame is sitting on them! (See my thread where I cut that peg-ended piece for the center legs - that was overkill and a waste that I wouldn't repeat if I had to do it again) That's about the only common mistake I see in a lot of stands (and virtually every commercial stand I ever put together when I did my tour in an LFS) - the legs are BESIDE the top frame so that you can screw them together.
Of course, that makes sense, right? If you sit the leg UNDER the frame, then you can't screw them together (because you can't screw into wood by going down the grain - it just doesn't hold)... Wrong! What that ends up doing is putting all the weight of your tank onto the screws or bolts that are holding the top frame to the legs. Screws are mighty tough, but if it's sitting directly on the wood, it would have to compress that wood to come down.... A Sherman tank might have enough mass to do that - an aquarium sure doesn't.
Another great structural favour you can do yourself is to have solid (or nearly so) sides and back. Reason for that is obvious if you have a bit of a mean streak. Go to any tank that's full of water and sitting on a commercial stand. Go up alongside it and kick it. The top of the stand will move left, the bottom will stay still, the screws will rip out and the whole thing will collapse. Those stands work under the assumption that bumps, earthquakes, and stupid accidents won't happen.. They can, and as the stand ages, that risk only becomes worse as the materials get older. When you have solid sides, the stand cannot torque from side force.. It's too much like a cube now. If you can't do solid sides, even a partial cover (a skirt) that goes from the top to a portion down will work wonders.
That's my opinion anyways - formed mainly from my experience in woodwork and listening to my father who has worked with wood his entire life... And also from kicking stands at work.
I could draw up some simple and ugly diagrams if you're interested - I'm not sure what level of DIY experience/determination you've got though. Others may (and I hope they do!) disagree with me and may chime in other advice.
Sponsor Reefs
We're a FREE website, and we exist because of hobbyists like YOU who help us run this community.
Click here to sponsor $10:
