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75 Gallon Stand

Joined
Dec 7, 2008
Messages
294
Location
Upstate NY, USA
I'm thinking about building my own stand. Anyone have any experiences to share? In a cursory trawl of the Googles, I've found several plans. I have no woodworking experience, but my neighbor is pretty good and is willing to help. The plans I've found so far seem pretty simple.
My old 55 gallon's stand was a series of stacked cinderblocks and some wood beams. Not the prettiest, but functional. This time I was thinking of something along these lines:

http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/75g_stand/index.shtml

But I was also thinking about trying to create a false frontpiece for it that looked like bamboo or stone. I did a search for stands on here and looked at those too.
 
Thanks! I've been sketching out some ideas for the final look of the thing (without any regard to access yet, just overall look).

tanks.jpg
 
If you are lacking in artistic (and it appears not) skill or want to ensure removability and water proofing there are some excellent vinyl decals about for the ceph part of your designs.

If you are making your stand, I assume you are considering making your hood as well and will want easy access to the tank. Our last DIY conversion (fresh to saltwater setup) had a very poorly designed hood so we cut large access holes through the top and then made hinged "doors" (that also support the light fixtures). I bought a couple of very reasonably priced octo handles and neal decided they needed to show up more so he fashioned a pair of acrylic extensions:

Dual Tubed Tank

Do note that the stand has an additional consideration if the tank is acrylic. A plywood or thick acrylic sheet over the entire stand top (or an inset with additional bracing and lowering of the center brace) would take care of it but acrylic needs full bottom support.
 
I was thinking of making the skeleton of the stand similar to what I linked to and then building a removable frontpiece for it, so I can get at the sump. I like your idea for the canopy, and I don't think I need a bottom brace for the stand because my 75 is glass. I was also thinking about sculpting some rock formations but I havent researched materials yet.
 
For our 90 gallon, the frame of the stand we have is essentially the same as the one you linked, but we have a bottom brace. Since ours is glass as well, I imagine that the brace might be a good idea (mind you, we got the original set-up and tank from my aunt after she got out of the aquarium hobby, so I'm only making this guess based on the assumption that there was a reason for the brace beyond 'better safe than sorry'; so, better take that advice with a grain of salt, i suppose); although, my tank is 90g rather than 75g, so I suppose I'm saying "just consider it".

...Also, I must concur with Tony (although I am somewhat partial to #4 as well as #3), those are very nice. :thumbsup:
 
I was going to say I liked #2 the best but I was counting left to right, top to bottom and not paying attention to the posted numbers :wink:

I will caution you, however, metal other than stainless is not a good idea. It WILL get saltwater spray (as a minimum) and it WILL rust. Even aluminum is not acceptable around salt water (so far my nickle plated handles show no problem but they stay dry). Acrylic, a jig saw and sand paper are a good combination. Alternately, wood sealed, resealed and sealed again would (pun intended) likely work. Something really cool but weighty would be to consider a ceramic mosaic (some really nice ones about that are used for swimming pools) but keeping it clean would be a pill.

You might look into putting hinges on the outer sides (the kind you can lift up to remove the hinged part) and spliting it down the middle so that you could swing half the front to each side (assuming there is room for this) without having to remove the entire front when you want to get to stuff. You would have to work out a way to fully support the weight both open and closed but a little thought will likely produce a number of workable options.

There are inner lids inside my canopy and we fashioned a small square of acrylic on the inside of the outer tops so that I can "hook" the tank cover open and support the outer cover at the same time (both lids are hinged). This simple consideration has been a terrific maintenance work saver.
 
IMO the stand should be about functionality, allowing you to take out skimmers and access everything you have under them. I added hinges to my stand to make cabinets for the front. I also have a huge hole in the side so that i can slip out the sump in case of a leak. I know it sounds risky but i've seen the same done on much larger scales so i went for it. I'm partial to design 3. What kind of lighting are you going to use?
 

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