Advice on finding stand

[+KimP]

I recently bought a tank and stand. Turns out after lots of trying different things, that this stand is not going to work for a sump, or even a canister filter, nothing. I need to at least be able to run some stuff under the tank, so I've been looking and looking for stands. I've never had a sump before so I have a few questions.

How open does the back need to be? I can't drill the tank, so the tubing will be running down the back of the tank.

Where is a good place to look with reasonable prices? I've found several stand with the right dimensions, but they don't hold enough weight, are really cheaply manufactured and would need work, or the shipping costs make the price too high.

Feeling pretty lost! The tank is 48 1/4” x 12 3/4” It seems to be the footprint of a standard 55 gal but is taller and holds around 65 gallons. So it's heavier.

Any advice?

[subsea]

I like the back of the cabinet completely open. In addition to allowing for plenty of fuge factor when running plumbing, it also allows for good air circulation. This assist with carbon dioxide and oxygen gas exchange as well as well as promote better evaporative cooling.

Not having the ability to use HOB devices is a real bummer.

Consider a display refugium located with its water level above your display tank water level. With a pump submerged in the display tank, pump water up to refugium. With a drilled tank, this would be the maintained level of your display refugium. Precautions to not overflow the refugium would be required. Consider that your display tank contains 2.5 gallons per I inch. If your refugium is 20 G and your normal level to operate is 4" from over flow, then you must locate pump suction in display tank not to be able to pump display tank down more than 2". Just a thought.

Patrick

[bige]

You could go to goodwill and find an old piece of furniture. A lot of the pieces I have found there are 1" thick solid wood. You do have to look around a lot. The one on Brodie is pretty good. Also if you find something you like, we can always reinforce the inside. No biggie.

You could also build it yourself. Then skin it. Either in stone, wood, etc. it's up to you.

[Timfish]

A good stand for a 55 will work. A stand for a 75 might work also but you may need to use a piece of plywood or solid wood shelving. I would prefer an open back for ventilation and easier plumb and run cords but holes could be drilled for fans and stuff if needed.

[gibs]

I like the idea of finding a old piece of furniture to use. If you found a old dresser that wasn't to long and made very sturdy you can easily knock out the back (usually thin wood if any) and knock out the supports for the drawers and put a door over them. Little sanding and painting and your good to go. Of course I like doing little DIY projects so this may not be up your alley.

[+KimP]

I love diy projects and am seriously considering building my own. I've been looking at several plans. Seems really easy and I have the tools for it. I just can't do any kind of painting myself, or anything else that has fumes, so I was trying to get around that. Getting some old furniture sounds like a good idea, but if I knocked out the back, wouldn't that take some of the support away? It could just be reinforced I bet. Hmmm, it's very tempting!

[gibs]

You would certainly have to evaluate each piece of furniture on its own. But a large part of them no. all that is on the back of say 90% of dressers or armoires, bookshelves is just a piece of 1/8 inch plywood/laminate and gives no structural support at all. Now if it is a particularly large piece it may have a bracing in the middle and that would have to stay to distribute weight, but you should be able to slide a sump in between it and the front. If you go the used route be very very careful to pick solid pieces that use real wood and not something that has say laminate over particle board that wouldn't work at all I don't think. Now a easy way to get around painting if its wood. If you can sand it down to bare wood (this may be more trouble than it's worth), then you can use a rubbing oil to seal it, and give it a stained look. Oil doesn't have much fumes but it takes multiple and I mean a lot multiple like 10 or more, coats of it to sink far enough in to the wood to seal it. It's a lot more time and requires a little bit of going over quickly to keep up the clean appearance but it is another route without painting and a bunch of fumes. (or just look on craigslist and find a painter to come do it for you, probably won't cost more than a 100$).

[chippwalters]

Hi Kim,

One thing to remember. An open back and open front (or doors on front) is not a naturally stable structure.

If the back is to be open, I'd suggest adding a crisscross of turnbuckle wires on the back.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[bimmerzs]

You can also find someone to build a steel stand for a reasonable rate. A steel stand would give you maximum support and flexability. HTH

Cheers,

[Timfish]

Chip makes a good point. The thin backing on furniture does not provide much support for weight but gives diagonal support from top to bottom opposite corners to keep the furniture from "racking" or shifting from side to side (becomeing a trapizoid insead of a rectangle). In a normal aplication it keeps a dresser from locking up drawers but a lightly built dresser with a heavy wieght on top may lean to the side and over time and fail. A stand does not need a back on if it is built stout enough and a dresser can have additional support in the way of 2 x 4s or similar material added.

[victoly]

My vote is for the most exotic, but strongest (and potentially expensive) option. Steel frame with magnetic decorative panels to cover everything. You're talking about housing expensive livestock, in caustic water that has the potential to ruin a large chunk of your house if it fails catastrophically. When you factor in your time/materials for a DIY like this, (IMO) you end up at or exceeding the cost for a professional to build you a simple steel frame. You can always add in the decorative panels later to cover up the guts. My 2 cents...good luck with whatever route you pick.

[bige]

I think if saw some of the furniture goodwill gets you would be very surprised. I got a cabinet made from 1" solid mahogany. It's 7' tall and 2' wide. For $25. It weighs about 250 pounds. I'm not using it for a fish tank but a chameleon cage. Also they auction off their nicer stuff which actually usually go for 25-40 bucks. You can't build anything for cheaper than that.

But yes each piece needs to be evaluated on its own. And for a fish tank I would reinforce the frame.

[+KimP]

My vote is for the most exotic, but strongest (and potentially expensive) option. Steel frame with magnetic decorative panels to cover everything. You're talking about housing expensive livestock, in caustic water that has the potential to ruin a large chunk of your house if it fails catastrophically. When you factor in your time/materials for a DIY like this, (IMO) you end up at or exceeding the cost for a professional to build you a simple steel frame. You can always add in the decorative panels later to cover up the guts. My 2 cents...good luck with whatever route you pick.

This was actually the first idea I had, only I was looking at the premade steel stands. It appealed to me because this would leave the most interior room. All the ones I looked at online were cheap compared to wood and I ultimately ditched the idea because the weight limit was for a 55 gal, not a 65 (same footprint). Also, it's a really simple frame, is it really strong enough without any support in the middle? I was considering putting a wooden top, basically building a stand around the steel frame. Idk though. I'll look into having one custom made. This is the one I had been looking at: www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=9883&cmpid=03csent&ref=3665&subref=AA

I really appreciate all the input. I'm itching to get this tank build started but I'm completely stalled on the stand.

Keep the ideas coming!

[+KimP]

A good stand for a 55 will work. A stand for a 75 might work also but you may need to use a piece of plywood or solid wood shelving. I would prefer an open back for ventilation and easier plumb and run cords but holes could be drilled for fans and stuff if needed.

That's what I've been searching for, 55 gal stands. Should be easy to find one, but I keep just finding ones that cost more than $500 (plus shipping) or are really cheap petco type stands with rather poor reviews and low weight limits. It's the ”good” 55 gal stands that I can't find or can't tell that I'm looking at one, if that makes sense. I found one from glasscages.com but it has a solid back and shipping is as much as the stand itself. I've never had a sump and never shopped for a stand before. I'm sure you can tell!

[Teresa]

My vote is for the most exotic, but strongest (and potentially expensive) option. Steel frame with magnetic decorative panels to cover everything. You're talking about housing expensive livestock, in caustic water that has the potential to ruin a large chunk of your house if it fails catastrophically. When you factor in your time/materials for a DIY like this, (IMO) you end up at or exceeding the cost for a professional to build you a simple steel frame. You can always add in the decorative panels later to cover up the guts. My 2 cents...good luck with whatever route you pick.

This was actually the first idea I had, only I was looking at the premade steel stands. It appealed to me because this would leave the most interior room. All the ones I looked at online were cheap compared to wood and I ultimately ditched the idea because the weight limit was for a 55 gal, not a 65 (same footprint). Also, it's a really simple frame, is it really strong enough without any support in the middle? I was considering putting a wooden top, basically building a stand around the steel frame. Idk though. I'll look into having one custom made. This is the one I had been looking at: www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=9883&cmpid=03csent&ref=3665&subref=AA

I really appreciate all the input. I'm itching to get this tank build started but I'm completely stalled on the stand.

Keep the ideas coming!

I took a look at the drsfostersandsmith stand. I wonder if this would put your display tank higher than you'd like - then again, you had mentioned being able to keep certain things out of Johnny's reach . . . hummm

[Timfish]

. . . is it really strong enough without any support in the middle? . . .

How is your tank built? Most glass tanks that size have a trim around the edge or perimeter of the tank so in the middle the glass is suspended anyway. If it's acrylic you'll want a solid piece of plywood which could be hidden easily enough with trim but if you used 3/4" you still would not need a center brace. This may be presumptuous on my part but I suspect Victoly is refering to a custom steel stand built with square tubular steel or heave duty angle stock. It would be considerably stouter than what Dr's Foster and Smith are selling. You could get custom doors from a home improvement center which you could attach magnets to to stick to the steel frame if you didn't want to build panels yourself.

Just thought you should know in an effort increase your frustration level we're trying to prolong this decision making process by giving you as many different options as possible and to give you that much more to think about considering the pro's and cons of all the different permutaions. Wait 'till we get to all the different ways you can set up sumps and/or refugiums!

[bige]

With a custom steel frame, the frame would be painted black or any color for that matter. The paint would protect against rust. The term "skin" would only be used to hide the inside. You can use magnets to hold the skin on. This makes all sides accessible. Or you can screw straight to the metal basically making a traditional stand. Or you could have a steel frame and buy a cabinet or a piece of furniture you like, then cut that up and use that as the skin.

An idea I will use in the future, is have a steel frame, skinned with ply wood, then covered in tile. In my case I would use those thin stick like tiles. But if you use ply wood you could really cover it in any material that would match your house or liking. So it looks like the tank is sitting on rocks then to access the inside you just remove the panel.

[+KimP]

Thanks everybody for all of the suggestions. I went with a custom steel stand. Strong and minimal since I need all the room I can get underneath. No ideas yet on the skin but I love the idea of magnetic panels. So will my toddler, lol! I'll figure the childproofing out later Next to figure out a sump idea...

[Timfish]

Kim, after our conversation at the ARC meeting saturday I took a quick video of the system that had the clams reproduce. It has just a very basic sump with no embellishments. I've also included a quick video I took a few weeks ago of the Zonal system I maintain to give you an idea of how complicated you can make it if you want. First link is the simple sump setup and the second is the Zonal system:

There are four considerations I would suggest in deciding how and why you set up your sump/refugium, 1st is "How are you going to control your alkalinity", the 2nd is closely related "How are you going to control your calcium", 3rd is "How are you going to deal with phosphates and the fourth is "Keep it easy to access and maintain" (I know it pH could be argued as a 5th but if you are dealing with alkalinity and calcium I would think it's being dealt with.)