Stand support question...

[Juxtaroberto]

I hope I can explain my question without having to draw some kind of picture... Does a stand need support along all four sides? I'm talking about its "legs," the stuff it stands on. What people usually do is they make a rectangle with lumber, which goes on the floor, and then lumber placed vertically, as its legs, which support another lumber rectangle, upon which the tank sits.

Is there any way to only have the back and sides of the stand, so that the front has nothing in the way? Maybe really beefing up the back and sides, and the flat part the stand actually sits on, to better distribute the weight?

The thing is, I'm thinking about space conservation, and I think it'd be pretty cool to have two huge tanks, one atop the other. Only I'd hate for the top tank's stand to obstruct the view of the bottom tank.

A little voice deep in my head is telling me that this probably isn't possible without seriously endangering my safety.

Don't worry, I haven't started building anything yet, but if this ever happens, they're going to be plywood tanks with a glass (or maybe acrylic, depending on price) viewing window on the front.

I hope I explained pretty well what I meant... otherwise I'm gonna have to go on Paint or something...

 

[CLDarnell]

Hello...

I had these same thoughts actually. To answer your question, yes, it can be done.

There's a couple of thoughts I had. The first is simple...run an angled brace from the top front rectangle to the bottom rectangle, maybe about half way back. Depending on the tank size, this brace will have to be pretty massive. And of course, you end up with a big brace running across the side of your tank.

The second thought is to run an arc brace. Basically, if you can imagine a solid side, but with a large half-circle cut out of it. The arc would start at the top front, circle towards the center of the side, then arc back to the bottom front. Again, it's still partially covering the sides, but in a more pleasing way.

The only other way I have thought of is to support the front side from above...running vertical members up into the joists above. Or...build an entire frame that can support the front edge from above.

Pretty much anything you do is going to have to be substantial. Be careful if you try building anything without having someone that has experience with structural calculations to look over your design.

Good luck!