The Woes Of Second Hand Stuff. . .

Was getting ready to set up my 75 and found that the stand has a 3" crack on the bottom inside of it. Needless to say, I had to get another. I bet I woulda spent less overall had I just freakin' bought all new stuff.

The only good part is, now that I have a different style of stand, I can eventually ditch my AC110 and AC50 and get a nice external filter. You win some and you lose some. . .

Anyone else ever been duped on second hand stuff?

why not just fix the stand?

I've never had an issue with second hand items. But I do a lot of DIY and modifications so if its broke then it gets repaired. If its not broke it usually taken apart and/or modified anyway. My 20 gallon stand was second hand I put 2 selves and a back on it. The big stand for my 55 was made by my dad about 15 years ago.

It's made of MDF and is a cam type assembly so I'd be slapping screws in the outside. Secondly, there's a shelf across the entire stand and then on the underside, there's more wood so I'd have to cut two 1 x 4's to fit the front and back of the legs for in front of and behind the wood piece that extends below the shelf, and then I'd have to tack two more 1 x 4's vertically on the front and back of each side and then drill through the MDF. I could do it for sure, but it won't look 'clean' -- this is going in our living room that opens to our dining room and between our sunroom doors, so it will be a big focal point of our upstairs, so it is really important to me that it looks nice and the fit and finish is great.

That's why I'd rather just buck up and get a new stand than have to piecemeal a solution together and take away from the appearance. I'm anal like that

I know that it may no longer be pertinent however this might be useful in the future...

When using screws to join MDF to form a corner note that whilst MDF is good at resisting forces when you screw through it it is s lot weaker when screwed along the board . To get around this when joining two boards to make a right angle drill a hole through the board and fill with dowel so that the screw can bite into the dowel rather than just the end grain of the MDF. (picture attached explains this better!)


Moisture resistant MDF (MRMDF) is slightly more dense, less likely to have furry cut edges and of course is better in damp situations. Though I have to say that I really prefer marine ply to MDF nowadays

HTH

Miles

Thank you! Good to know.

I always buy my equipment & tanks second hand, I refuse to pay hundreds of pounds for 4 pieces of glass, some aquarium silicone, bits of plastic & some MDF.

Of course that comes with a risk but that is life.