Designing my steel stand

[DeepArow]

Good morning,

Guys I think I'm in over my head and I would love if you guys could give me some feedback. I got a 210g (207 to be exact) and a 125g that I want to setup on the same rack with the option of upgrading the 125g to 210g in about a year. I want to do a steel rack with the intention of doing 2"x2" square tubing with 1/4" steel walls. I figure with a safety factor of 1.5 I need each level/shelf to hold approximately 2600 lbs. I'm not an engineer and quite frankly after 2 days of trying to dig around google I'm more terrified than ever that I need to go to larger steel because of the style of my design. This is my first time doing something this large so any assistance would be appreciated.

Stand design (sorry I'm pretty new to sketchup):
http://imgur.com/hrGHkre

The tank dimensions are:
WxDxH
210 - 72"'x30"x20"
125 - 72"x19.5"x20"

Bonus points if you think from your experience I'm making a bad decision by the height of the top tank being 68" tall.

Thanks everyone

 

[wednesday13]

Id use 1.5" 1/8" thickness, pretty much my go 2 material size for any stand i make for 200-500gal tanks.... i rarely use 2" for anything these days unless i have it on hand from other jobs. Overbuilding is never a bad thing i agree...but theres no need for 1/4" thickness material. Ive put up 500 gals on 1/2"-1/16" guage no prob in my earlier yrs. 45 bracing becomes more necessary with the use of 1/2" square stock and on the other side when using 1.5-2" box tube i rarely use 45's at all. 2"x1/8" stock would be very stout for ur proposed plan and imo no 45's would be needed. Just throw in some extra braces/cross pieces so ur tank ends sit flush. if ur using tempered bottom glass tanks their mainly supported by the ends of the tank... if ur using acrylic tanks make sure u place cross braces every 24" minium to support the bottom of the tanks. We have a few other members who build steel stands...im sure theyll chime in with other opinions soon also. Good luck! and no need 2 be afraid or think ur in over ur head. Steel stands in 1.5-2" material could easily hold a car up lol...

 

[markstrimaran]

My 1.5" × 14 Guage .08" wall. Set up for stacked 75,90 gallon. For a 48" span.
For a 6' span, 1.5" square 11 guage, .011" would be minimum.
A 2" square x 14 guage would be pretty close.

1.5" square × 1/8" will be strong and a little easier to weld diy.

 

[pacu mom]

Here's an 85 page thread on steel stands DIY section of Reefcentral.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1330053&highlight=steel+stands

 

[pacu mom]

If you are planning on skinning the stand, I suggest you include some tabs--it makes enclosing the stand a lot easier and saves drilling directly into the stand. We did not do that, and we didn't want to drill the stand. A couple of tabs would have saved us a lot of extra work.

 

[jsodwi]

No need for 1/4". I use 2x2x1/8" anything over 180g. I know it's overkill but material price is not much more. I build a ton of them for 125g up to 1000g with 1/8" thick tubing.

 

[dgsxdad]

Agreed with wednesday.1 1/2" x 1/8" square tube is plenty for those size tanks. I did mine with that size for a 225G and no gussets or 45 bracing was needed, however I did put a 3" x 1 1/2" x 1/8" center brace front and back. Not sure what type of welder you will be using but a mid range mig would be the easiest.

 

[pacu mom]

Bonus points if you think from your experience I'm making a bad decision by the height of the top tank being 68" tall.

Thanks everyone

Is there room to access the tank from behind? How will you reach the bottom of the tank? Standing on a ladder? It is 72" to the top of our tank. We built a platform behind the tank to access the top of the tank.

I just got a 3-rung step ladder last week to get on the platform. (2 rungs were too difficult for me)....but then I'm vertically challenged at 5'1"

 

[DeepArow]

Oh man thank you everyone for the replies, makes me feel alot more confident about this project. My largest concern was the 73.5" span with no center bracing (my 400 has 1/2" square tubing but its got 2 sets of cross bracers in the middle for extra support; but honestly reading through and trying to figure out deflection calculations and everything else I was just becoming more and more confused as to if it would actually be safe enough.

I had included the gussets in the diagram as extra measure, it would be great to get rid of them so if you think its already overkill then that makes that pretty easy.

Lastly just want to give a shout out to pacumom; when we originally started talking about this project I actually stumbled on your build album from that tank (couldn't mistake that skimmer/overflow design anywhere) and oddly enough one of the questions I did have was how you were going to access the tank for maintenance being as high as it was. Now that that is answered I can go onto trying to figure out: what return pumps you plan on using/how you plan on heating it with/what thickness the acrylic on the tank actually is.

Anyways; now that my mind is at ease I'll be purchasing some materials over the next few weeks and will have to come back with build updates. Thanks again!

 

[markstrimaran]

If you are planning on skinning the stand, I suggest you include some tabs--it makes enclosing the stand a lot easier and saves drilling directly into the stand. We did not do that, and we didn't want to drill the stand. A couple of tabs would have saved us a lot of extra work.

I found out after that the walls were not very square compared too my level aquariums.

Lots of tabs, also some to bolt it to a back wall.