Well I have been looking to build a large tank for a long time and have gained a lot of knowledge from this site as well as others and decided to post my experience to help everyone else.
The tank is going to have a base of 4' by 8'(normal sheet of plywood) and will be slightly over 5' tall with the stand in place. The water depth will be around 40" so 670 gallons is a close estimate. It is going in my basement so no worries about floor support problems. I plan on using 3/4" plywood walls with external 2x4s for bracing and then using fiberglass cloth and 2 part epoxy to seal the inside. I am only going to have one front viewing window and plan on going with starphire glass from glasscages.com
I already built the stand which is only 9 inches tall so the tanks top is not too high. I placed another sheet of plywood on top of this and I painted everything with exterior paint to avoid anything rotting just in case there is too much moisture.
I hate the idea that I may end up moving someday and would need to leave my tank behind because it is too big to fit through any door so after so thinking I decided to split the base of the tank into two pieces. This way I will have two 2x8 foot by 4 foot high pieces of aquarium that can fit through any door. Originally, I had planned on just having another panel of plywood as the base of the aquarium and just setting it on top of the stand, but in order to join the two halves together I decided to use 2x4s underneath and then join them will galvanized bolts.
This is only one half of the tank base upside down on the stand.
This is the whole tank base bolted together standing on its side.
The tank is going to have a base of 4' by 8'(normal sheet of plywood) and will be slightly over 5' tall with the stand in place. The water depth will be around 40" so 670 gallons is a close estimate. It is going in my basement so no worries about floor support problems. I plan on using 3/4" plywood walls with external 2x4s for bracing and then using fiberglass cloth and 2 part epoxy to seal the inside. I am only going to have one front viewing window and plan on going with starphire glass from glasscages.com
I already built the stand which is only 9 inches tall so the tanks top is not too high. I placed another sheet of plywood on top of this and I painted everything with exterior paint to avoid anything rotting just in case there is too much moisture.
I hate the idea that I may end up moving someday and would need to leave my tank behind because it is too big to fit through any door so after so thinking I decided to split the base of the tank into two pieces. This way I will have two 2x8 foot by 4 foot high pieces of aquarium that can fit through any door. Originally, I had planned on just having another panel of plywood as the base of the aquarium and just setting it on top of the stand, but in order to join the two halves together I decided to use 2x4s underneath and then join them will galvanized bolts.
This is only one half of the tank base upside down on the stand.
This is the whole tank base bolted together standing on its side.
