I've got a 300 gallon acrylic aquarium that I am attempting to design a wooden stand for. I've never built an aquarium stand although I do have experience in building other large wooden structures. I've got a preliminary design that satisfies my requirements but I don't know if it will be strong enough. I want to share the design with people who have done this before and see if anyone can tell me if what I'm planning will work or not or perhaps give me some advice on a different approach.
Requirements:
Here is a sketch of what I've come up with so far, shown as sort of a build up in four steps for clarity. I hope the drawing makes sense and the resolution is good enough to read. Let me know if something's not clear and I'll try to show it better.
Different boards are color coded for ease of reference. This would all be covered in plywood and then trim and doors would be added. I understand the basic principles of building a stand - the wood should be in compression, not tension. Wood should be supported by wood, not by hardware. The red 2x4s are sitting on the green 2x4s which are sitting on the bottom frame, so that part is good, but the brown 2x4s that run front-to-back at the top are not supported by anything except the hardware attaching them to the red boards. I wish the green boards could be 4x4s or doubled-up 2x4s, but that would take up too much interior width and then the sump wouldn't fit.
Some ideas I've played with:
Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to look at all this, and I'd appreciate any feedback folks have.
Requirements:
- Stand must support 300 gallon acrylic tank - 8'x4' footprint, 3000 lbs give or take when full
- Tank is drilled with overflow in back center, so have to make sure that area is clear
- My filtration plan calls for a sump tank with a 48"x18" footprint (~48.5"x18.5" with trim). This is the part that is making things difficult. Assuming the stand is 24" wide, that only leaves 5.5" total in front of and behind the sump for support columns. this means I could use 2x4s on the perimeter of the frame, but no 4x4s or anything anywhere but the perimeter, including the ends. Assuming I don't leave a 4' gap between vertical supports, I'll need to have clearance to pull the sump out from the side of the stand if I need to.
Here is a sketch of what I've come up with so far, shown as sort of a build up in four steps for clarity. I hope the drawing makes sense and the resolution is good enough to read. Let me know if something's not clear and I'll try to show it better.
Different boards are color coded for ease of reference. This would all be covered in plywood and then trim and doors would be added. I understand the basic principles of building a stand - the wood should be in compression, not tension. Wood should be supported by wood, not by hardware. The red 2x4s are sitting on the green 2x4s which are sitting on the bottom frame, so that part is good, but the brown 2x4s that run front-to-back at the top are not supported by anything except the hardware attaching them to the red boards. I wish the green boards could be 4x4s or doubled-up 2x4s, but that would take up too much interior width and then the sump wouldn't fit.
Some ideas I've played with:
- Expanding the stand outward. This would allow for bigger support columns that the brown boards could rest on, but it wouldn't add anything to the wood directly under the tank, so I'm not sure how much it would help. Plus I don't think it would look very good.
- I could turn the green columns into 2x6s or larger and break up the red beams so that the brown boards would span edge-to-edge and rest on the green columns. I feel like this would strengthen the brown boards but weaken the red ones, though.
- I could add triangles underneath the brown beams and attach them to the green beams that way - there's space in the area above the sump I left for access room. This would probably add a little strength but it still wouldn't be wood holding up wood.
Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to look at all this, and I'd appreciate any feedback folks have.
