125 Gallon Stand Project!!!!

[Ka0s]

Ok. My friends and I decided to take part on building multiple stands for ourselves. This is my stand. A 125 Gallon stand. My 125 gallon Lee Mar tank with sit atop and thus far I have 3 F1 Red Terrors to place in this bad boy. I will one day find my Blue Eyed Pleco, for cheap, and place him in this tank.
Tank: 6 ft long and 19 wide
Stand should be 7 ft long and 3 ft tall.

Tell me what you think of our progress!

 

[smitty03281964]

Great job.

 

[deeda]

Are you planning on sheathing that stand with plywood?

 

[fish_sauce]

You need to redo your supports. I want to give you some good advice. You should look at what other people have done with their supports. First of all, you don't need metal brackets for the supports. Second, you should take apart what you have done so far, before you put any more work into it. You don't want all that weight sitting on supports like that. They look very flimsy. There are many good builds on this thread, and you should do some research. I've also got a thread on here about my build.

 

[fish_sauce]

One more thing. The height of your stand is fine. Usually taller stands are much better. But you have a big problem with the length. A 7' stand for a standard 125 gallon will look very tacky, to say the least. You don't want 6" of extra room on either side. It will be an eyesore. You will have wished you built it to length everytime you look at it.

 

[john73738]

I have to agree with the above post. You do want to get rid of the metal brackets. If you do not want to do a complete rebuild I would go invest in a Kreg pocket hole jig. It will make a much stronger joint, and I would use liquid nail also. The design is almost hap hazard. Your vertical support should line up with the cross braces for optimal strength. If the design stays then I would skin it with 3/4" ply glued and screwed to provide horizontal stability.

Hope this helps, check out my 240 gallery for pics of the stand I build for my Ply 240.

Bear

 

[fish_sauce]

With the stand as is, it's an accident waiting to happen.

 

[Motoxer777]

thats a whole lotta wood you used there. is it heavy?

 

[Ka0s]

lol it is not even done yet. It is still in progress. Yeah, I am not too fond of the center brackets either. It will have plywood for sure on top and these won't be all the supports. I made it longer because I was planning on putting shelving space on the sides, however I am not too happy with the length as well. I was looking at some of other stands and I am sorry but maybe my pics aren't showing well enough how each piece is placed and screwed but these other stands it baffles my mind how it can sit on a flat surface and be completely square and hold the appropriate weight without stressing certain sections. It is a little heavy but not that bad.

 

[Ka0s]

I am getting up early and doing some more work but so far maybe I haven't shown or told you guys enough but these arent the only supports or pieces that will be used for support...