DIY stand for my 400 gallon tank

[Tigerdat]

This is how it starts as a pile of wood. The stand will be fairly simple. The design goals are:
1. It must be light enough for 2 people to carry
2. It will be an open stand, no doors for ease of maintenance. My couch will be in front if the stand.
3. Tall enough to to fit large canister filter or a pool filter and must fit my fluidized bed filter, its about 32 inches tall.
4. and obviously must carry 4000lb of tank, sand and water.


The stand is mostly 1x4, 1x6, 1x8 poplar and 3/4 inch birch plywood. The cross supports are maple 1x4

I'll use a lot of biscuits and glue.

 

[Knowdafish]

And?

 

[Tigerdat]

I built the top and bottom frames first. The top is 1x8 with a 1x4 glued together with maple 1x4 cross supports. The bottom is 1x6 and 1x3 glued together.

The tank is 10 feet long so I doubled up where the seam will be in the plywood top.

 

[zennzzo]

Nice choice on the wood type and grade...waiting to see more...

 

[Pharaoh]

Are you only using biscuit on this stand? If so I would be worried that they will not hold. Biscuits are not a solid way to connect the pieces.

 

[zennzzo]

Are you only using biscuit on this stand? If so I would be worried that they will not hold. Biscuits are not a solid way to connect the pieces.

I don't know about that bro...
there are turn of the century hulls on commercial fishing boats, still in service,
that are put together with glue, dowels, beeswax, and Old growth Sitka Fir...not a nail or screw in them, and they're are proud of that...

 

[SovietFireExtinguisher]

It's the Bee's wax. Don't underestimate it. It's like natures miracle. As for biscuit joining, the actual joined bond is stronger then the molecular bond in wood. It's the surrounding area where the wood is cut away that is the weak part.

 

[hybridtheoryd16]

dowels if tight enough are wooden nails.

 

[Tigerdat]

Nothing is in sheer so I'm not really worried about the biscuits. The only hard part about building this stand is cutting the vertical pieces perfect. There isn't any room for error or the load isn't transferred properly.

 

[RedTailKinG]

looking good!