Building stands for multiple tanks???

[Hybridfish7]

Hm, sagulator says:

The shelf with the 60s should not snap, even without bracing, which it will have. Then again, I don't know if it's talking about an entire 3.5" thick board, if it accounts for 2x4s, or if I'm just stupid and it doesn't matter.
Now I guess our main issue is the thing falling over. I've always been scared of that in terms of stands I've built. I often put little feet that stick out like ski's to keep the thing from falling over if I don't trust a stand.

 

[Backfromthedead]

Hm, sagulator says:
View attachment 1500849
The shelf with the 60s should not snap, even without bracing, which it will have. Then again, I don't know if it's talking about an entire 3.5" thick board, if it accounts for 2x4s, or if I'm just stupid and it doesn't matter.
Now I guess our main issue is the thing falling over. I've always been scared of that in terms of stands I've built. I often put little feet that stick out like ski's to keep the thing from falling over if I don't trust a stand.

?good luck

 

[jjohnwm]

Measure three times...cut once.

I personally would not trust that tall, narrow structure without attaching it to the wall. Just picture it tipping forward...

You mentioned screws and 2x4 wood. The weight should never be sitting on a horizontal piece which is merely screwed to the side of a vertical piece. There must be a solid vertical "column" of wood between the tank and the floor. Verticals need to be doubled up to achieve this. Build the framework, then carefully measure the lengths of verticals to sit on top of the bottom horizontal or even directly on the floor, and butting up to the bottom of the top horizontal. You want the weight supported on wood, not merely on a few screws of limited shear strength. twentyleagues shows this in his last pic. Yes, it takes more wood...but that's what it takes.

And finally: screws and glue is far, far stronger than just screws. Finalize your design, and then glue it while you assemble.

 

[Hybridfish7]

Measure three times...cut once.

I personally would not trust that tall, narrow structure without attaching it to the wall. Just picture it tipping forward...

You mentioned screws and 2x4 wood. The weight should never be sitting on a horizontal piece which is merely screwed to the side of a vertical piece. There must be a solid vertical "column" of wood between the tank and the floor. Verticals need to be doubled up to achieve this. Build the framework, then carefully measure the lengths of verticals to sit on top of the bottom horizontal or even directly on the floor, and butting up to the bottom of the top horizontal. You want the weight supported on wood, not merely on a few screws of limited shear strength. twentyleagues shows this in his last pic. Yes, it takes more wood...but that's what it takes.

And finally: screws and glue is far, far stronger than just screws. Finalize your design, and then glue it while you assemble.

Oh yeah, I have vertical supports in the design already. Nowadays, even for my cheaper and lower profile racks for smaller tanks, I use the design where you have the horizontals attached to the columns with vertical supports attached to the side of the columns, which the horizontals sit on. Thanks for the tip with the glue. Is it still top heavy/thin if the whole thing is going to be 20" long at the base with another rough 1200 lbs weighing it down on the bottom shelf? Also, how much does adding bracing help with horizontal strength?

 

[jjohnwm]

I thought that I was seeing double columns in your drawing, just wanted to be sure.

You may have 1200 pounds on the bottom shelf...but you have even more on the top shelf. Look at the narrow side-view provile of that stand. Do you really want to take the chance of it falling? I would run a 2x4 the length of the stand, attached horizontally to the wall at all the studs, at the same level as the top of the stand, so that you could then put a few large screws or lagbolts through the back of the top of the stand and into that support.

Do you have big dogs? Small kids that like to climb on things? Friends with small kids that like to climb on things? Friends that get drunk and like to climb on things?

You are building a 12-foot long stand that is going to weigh over two tons all told...and are not permitted to drill a couple holes into the wall? Get permission! A half dozen screw holes is not difficult to fill and paint at some future point when you take this down...or is there some other reason not to drill the wall? Whatever the rationale is...ignore it. Fix this beast to the wall.

I'm not sure what kind of bracing you are referring to here. Simple front to back braces to tie in the horizontals will help keep them from bowing outwards, but doesn't add much to the strength of the whole structure, or its ability to support weight. I would definitely add a diagonal brace at each end, and two more in the back. Diagonals keep everything squared up and make the entire structure much more stable, no tendency to "fold up" if lateral forces are applied.

And I realize that 5 inches may seem like a very adequate and workable clearance gap on paper. In reality...it will drive you crazy. Way too small.

 

[Hybridfish7]

You may have 1200 pounds on the bottom shelf...but you have even more on the top shelf.

This is true. I was going to ask if the fact that there's 40s underneath them as well (adding up to another full ton) would help, but figured I shouldn't after I read everything else.

Do you have big dogs? Small kids that like to climb on things? Friends with small kids that like to climb on things? Friends that get drunk and like to climb on things?

Fortunately no, and when kids do come over they know not to touch the tanks at least.

You are building a 12-foot long stand that is going to weigh over two tons all told...and are not permitted to drill a couple holes into the wall? Get permission! A half dozen screw holes is not difficult to fill and paint at some future point when you take this down...or is there some other reason not to drill the wall? Whatever the rationale is...ignore it. Fix this beast to the wall.

Now if you put it that way... I'll see what I can do, lol. At least I'm not doing this on the second floor of the house like all my tanks used to be. Not sure why I am only now realizing this entire thing will weight more than a giraffe.

As for the bracing, yea I just mean front to back bracing. However, I don't mean just one plank, I mean like one sitting broad side facing up, flush with the top of the stand, with two nailed to the sides of it. Not sure what this does, but I've seen it on other large builds, so feel I should probably incorporate it.

Here's a top view of the top rack. I've started color coding them by measurement. I'm also making a rough 3D model of the thing on a free cad website.

If you were wondering what's going in everything: (some stockings may be a bit extreme to some people)
60b -
Cichlasoma amazonarum
Astronotus sp. "jurua" "rio caqueta" F0

Possibly some kind of catfish and or characin

60b -
Amatitlania nigrofasciata/siquia "rio bagaces" F1/F2
Amatitlania septemfasciata "rio cornito" F1/F2

I do want some other fish in there, but want to at least stick to the bounds of western Costa Rica, and am not sure if there's any livebearers from the area that won't eat fry or get eaten themselves. As I've said in previous posts, bagaces hate tetras, so using buenos aires as astyanax substitutes is off the table, preferably.

60b -
Herichthys labridens "media luna"

Again, would like a livebearer or something, but am not sure how the labs will do with them. I'll ask around with people who've kept labs for their experiences with livebearers. Spencer Jack told a funny story at triple crown about watching pame get their sh*t rocked by swordtails in the wild. I'm sure fully grown labs would hold their own. Maybe I'll get montezumae.

40b -
Amatitlania sajica "rio paquita" F2?

Again, same deal with the western Costa Rican livebearers. I want fry out of these guys, so won't be using tetras.

40b -
Amatitlania myrnae "rio lari" F2?

Want more fish, don't know what fish. The closer you get to Colombia in central america though, the more funny little south american based fish start occuring, maybe I'll go with some little catfish or pristellas as a substitute for h. tortuguerae.

40b -
Amatitlania kanna "rio robalo"
Amatitlania septemfasciata "rio estrella" F3?

Want more fish, but same deal as the myrnae tank.

40b -
Cryptoheros chetumalensis/spilurus "rio sarstun/chahal"
Thorichthys meeki "laguna coba" F2
Xiphophorus birchmanni "rio coacuilco"
Poecilia kykesis

20L -
Amatitlania sp. "honduran red point" "rio los almendros" "platinum" (from rusty)

10 -
Limia perugiae

10 -
Limia tridens

10 -
Xiphophorus xiphidium (don't have, want)

10 -
Poecilia wingei "staeck" (don't have, want)

The other 2 10s + potential other 3 10s/20 long are still up in the air. Maybe I can do cories or something. I've wanted cw51s for awhile. Tucanoichthys...

I know a lot of these aren't exactly biotopes, especially since I know the locales on a lot of these; with the kanna/estrella septemfasciata tank that's more trying to lump the two species together because they occur along the Atlantic coast of eastern Costa Rica. Same with the cornito septs and bagaces convicts, the range for that septemfasciata form barely overlaps with the nicoya convicts. The chetumalensis tank is pretty much just throwing a bunch of random Mexican species together. I'll go through and look at where they occur geographically exactly, but they're all going in the same tank regardless.

 

[Milingu]

View attachment 1500826

The top row will bend at least half an inch if it doesn't break. This type of construction can be still an option if you don't mind slightly tilted tanks. Personally it would freak me out (saw something like that in a friend's fish room).

Also look for enough free space above the bottom and middle tanks. Anything where you cannnot fit your head in comfortable is too small. The time will come where you want to check closely what's happening in the bottom corner on the backside of a tank.
My current rack has 8 inch between the top of the glas and the next row. And that's already too small for handling the tanks comfortable. If I ever build a rack again it will have 12 inch distance.

 

[Hybridfish7]

The rough 3D model with roughly scaled tanks, next to a 5'6 human sized prism: (I say roughly scaled because I didn't add the trim lengths) (I am not 5'6)



I assume I will need a lot more bracing on the bottom.

Without tanks:




My question is, do the 40s need bracing in the middle of each tank? I wouldn't think so judging by the fact that the tank itself doesn't.
I will be making some modifications to the design, not sure if you could see it, but in the pictures with the tanks, there is a bit of overlap/merging. I don't think real glass tanks can do that, so I will likely need an extra inch or two lengthwise, and about an inch width wise, as there was a bit of overhang with some of the tanks. I will also factor in trim lengths/overhang when I put the tank models back in.

The top row will bend at least half an inch if it doesn't break. This type of construction can be still an option if you don't mind slightly tilted tanks. Personally it would freak me out (saw something like that in a friend's fish room).

Also look for enough free space above the bottom and middle tanks. Anything where you cannnot fit your head in comfortable is too small. The time will come where you want to check closely what's happening in the bottom corner on the backside of a tank.
My current rack has 8 inch between the top of the glas and the next row. And that's already too small for handling the tanks comfortable. If I ever build a rack again it will have 12 inch distance.

On this note, I will also be bumping the gaps up to 10".

 

[Hybridfish7]

Ah yes, I spend an hour and a half making the new model, only to find out that 40 breeders are a whole quarter inch longer than I thought they were and the four barely fit, I made the bottom rack wrong again, and the 60 breeders still don't fit. The whole thing now stands at a hefty 6'4.5. Needs another inch length wise. I actually ended up going 2 extra inches, but this still clearly did not help. The extra inch width wise did however, as none of the "tanks" hang over anymore. Back to the drawing board, again, I guess.

On a lighter note, fun fact, 60 breeders actually have pretty clean dimensions, seeing as it's a new model, I think they learned from all the old models and actually tried to make this one come stock with reasonable dimensions. It's also actually 18" tall, I thought it was only 16. Same deal for 40 breeders, they're actually a flat 17" tall as opposed to the 16 + whatever decimal extra I thought they'd be. The dimensions of a 60 breeder, as listed on aqueon's website, are 48.5 x 18.5 x 18. Pretty clean compared to the standard 10 gallon dimensions, being 20.25 x 10.5 x 12.5625. Perhaps they'll change up the rest of their standard dimensions to fall within half inch increments. Would make stand building a whole lot easier. I'm sure with the whole "dollar per gallon on empty bare tanks" thing being as big as it is, and getting bigger, they're probably starting to shift their marketing towards people like us, buying hellish amounts of tanks and building giant racks. Half inch increments makes cutting wood for said tanks easier.

Milingu would the fact that it's being drilled into the wall help structurally on the top rack?

 

[Milingu]

I don't think this will help, because I doubt the construction will be stiff enough to not twist. In the worst case only the front part will bend while the backside stays straight and the tanks will not stand on their 4 corners anymore. Which will lead to breaking tank bottoms.

Also your wall needs to be able to carry most of the weight and your anchors needs to be quite strong = you will have to drill pretty big holes compared to what is needed to simply stop it from tipping over.