Ideal height for in-wall 180g tank

[esmithiii]

I am moving my 180G tank from Knoxville to Indianapolis next week, and I will be putting it into my basement, which is currently unfinished. I plan on building it into the wall and was wondering what is a good height for viewing, and also for performing maintenance. Any ideas or experiences?

Thanks in advance,

Ernie

 

[damonbrodie]

I have a 65G (tall) recessed into a wall in my basement. The tank is 24" tall. The primary place from which this tank is viewed is my desk chair, so I decided to place the tank such that the middle of the tank was a bit higher than eye height when sitting.

This means the tank is virtually in the middle of the wall from top to bottom (3' off floor and 3' from ceiling).

To help me decide I put masking tape on the wall in various configurations and then looked at it from the various locations in the room.

In all I probably spent two or three days screwing around with the location before that first cut into the drywall

 

[damonbrodie]

I should also say that I need a small step in the room behind the tank if I want to reach the bottom of the tank. The room behind the tank is pretty crammed (its also under a staircase) but it all seems to work.

 

[Anonymous]

Good topic Ernie. I am planning to put the built-in 300 that I am planning at eye level when standing. I'm not sure what the idea height is, so maybe I'll learn something in your thread.

One thing I am going to do is make the stand one foot bigger across the back and around the two sides. That way I can climb up on the stand to do maintenance inside the tank. Maybe I'll even build a few stairs to climb up on. I haven't design the stand yet. That'll come after i finish building the skimmer and the sump.

Louey

 

[npaden]

My tank is on a 36" tall stand. I need a small step ladder to do quite a bit of the maintenance. I would probably make it 42" if I were to do it all over again even though that would mean having to be on a ladder for just about everything I do.

With it being built in I think you could just build a 12" or 18" step behind the tank that you could work off of.

FWIW, Nathan