Building your own stand

[shoboy]

This is my second homemade stand I just built. BUt I got a problem. More on that later.

I used 4x4's as the four corner uprights, then the rest out of 2x4's. I made it very similar to the one I currently have for my 50gal. I have a nice black skirt that goes around it, and I have shelves in the middle. It does look nice for a homemade job.

Now the problem. After carefully cutting the wood on a mitre saw, and measuring each peice so that they were EXACTLY the same length, I have have an unbalanced stand.

The tank only sits on 3 corners. It rocks 'kitty' corner, and is about 1/8" - 3/16" off balance on the low corner. It is the TOP of the stand, not the floor it is on. I am so pissed. I spent all sunday 2 weeks ago making these pieces, measuring, cutting, sanding the edges, everything was just fine, EXACTLY the same to the 1/64". I can only think that when I screwed it down, pre-drilled and countersunk hole's, one side must have screwed down farther.

So this is my remedy. Please comment if you have done this, or have another suggestion.

I have at my disposal (from work) 1/2" rubber "sheets". I am thinking on cutting them to fit over the 2x4 tops, and I have a thinner rubber "sheet" that I can use to "shim" the offset, if it still occurs after the main 1/2" rubber is put down.

I used to use strips of styrofoam to let the tank rest on, but I like this rubber, and it's free and easy to cut and place. Plus it's all covered anyway by the skirt, so you will never see it.

I'm worried about possible stress cracks since this is for my newer 90gal tank. I have 'shimmed' a tank before, but nothing over 20gal. Though the rubber will lessen the stress on the actual tank, I'm still worried.

I will not buy a premade stand, wood or metal. I dont trust them. The wood they use is not good enough to me, and I am a millwright/welder. The welds you see on those thin a$$ metal angle iron stands is poor, and the angle iron itself is too thin for my liking.

 

[Stryker]

Personally I've only ever used styrofoam tiles (you know the type you can buy for ceilings) because the way I see is the styrofoam "gives" to the tank so it can find it's own natural balance.

 

[Silly me]

You'll need to make a plan.. either fix the stand or towels

is the tank on supported at the edges? the complete bottom??
90gal is heavy and the stress on a corner will cause problems

but if the floor is skew, then you're fine just put some spacers under the shorter leg..

 

[shoboy]

The floor is fine. The tank is not sitting on the top of the stand correctly. Whatever the problem, it is either the tank itself, or the top of the stand.

At work I ended up finding 1" thick neopreen on a roll. It's 49 " wide and 35feet long, so I cut myself some and brought it home. That will let the tank find it's natural balance no prob. I also have some thinner neopreen to shim one end if need be.

I did think of styrofoam, but this neopreen has much more give to it, so being 90 gallons, I think the tanks weight distribution will be better on it than on styrofoam.


I'm giving it a go this sunday. I'll post if anything goes wrong.

Thank god I have a great wet/dry shop-vac

 

[DiXoN]

to answer your header question he a link to an article i wrote on building tank stands and hoods.
as for the other question about it not seating right i dont know i would find out was is causing the problem and fix that and not fix the symptom.

my link

http/www.aqua-petsuk.com/forum/index.php...?showtopic=1151

dixon

 

[drobbins27]

Try posting this in D-I-Y. Nice job with the stand no (no sarcasm intended)

 

[birdman]

i made my own stand for a 200gallon tank.

used 4X4 for the legs and 2X4 for the rest. it was a monster.

mine came out uneven aswell...like yours.
but i just got two bits of 2X4 and layed them flat over the two ends and then counter sunk screws into the bottom of the legs....if u kno wot i mean.

so, say u turn ur stand upside down, you have four legs poking up.
the two legs down the left side have a peice of 2X4 layed accross them and then bolted to the legs...(countersunk) and same for other side...

problem solved....
and it makes it way sturdier....

 

[carrcn]

Sounds kind of like mine!!! Could have been the unlevel surface I was building it on, but it worked out anyways. I've got a 55 gallon tank that I built my stand for. I built mine completely out of 2x4's. Pine has a compressive strength of 750 psi, so you're not even coming close to matching that.

I just kept putting the tank on the stand and sanding down the high areas until I got it fairly level. Takes a little time, and was a little frustrating. I even used my power planer and took 2mm off at each pass. I wound up making my high areas low with that, so I ended up doing it all by hand. I didn't put anything under mine to help compensate, and it's been up for about 6 months with no problems.

Doesn't sound like you're having any structural issues, so I'll leave it alone. But styrofoam will definitely help your situation if you're that worried about it. It'll compress more in areas that are high, and not so much in low areas. The neopreen sounds like it's ideal. You're on the right track. Keep us posted!

 

[shoboy]

I tried turning the stand upside down and putting 2x4's across it and checking it. Still the same thing. So I took my good old trust LASER Level and checked the tank itself on a flat surface. Well HOLY SH**, the tank itself is off just the tiniest bit on the bottom. Come to find out, it's the plastic frame. The reason it rocks corner to corner is that the plastic is not molded right on the corner. But it's barely off, just enough for that 1/8" offset.

I followed the laser line across the tank and seen that is disapeared about 3" from the edge.

I put the tank on the stand, rightside up, put all my gravel in the tank, and checked out how the neopreen rubber would work out. It leveled out perfect, and the neopreen is compensating for the plastic frame no prob.

After checking with the LFS that I bought it from, it turns out that the mold the tank mftr. used was broke.(he had other returns and checked into it) I was offered a refund/return, but I would have to wait about 2-3 weeks for the new tank. I told the guy who owns the LFS about what I wanted to do, and he laughs at me! After the wierd look on my face was obvious, he took me to the back of the store, behind the walls, and I seen the backs and sides of the HUGE tanks that he has set up. Sure as sh**, he did the exact same thing to his display tanks.

HE said that my idea will work fine and that the tank will not break or get stress cracks. I told him good, cause I'm impatient and I wanted to do this tank this Sunday. He also said that if anything was to happen, either with this tank or an exchanged one, that I would be SOL because the warrenty does not apply to homemade stands, and I would void it out. So either way, it my stand causes a problem, I'm on my own anyway. So I'm sticking with this tank.

The glass is level and fine, it's just the bottom corner of the plastic is shorted , but the rest of the tank is fine. I doubled the thickness of the neopreen, so now I have 2" of rubber, with 1 strip of 1/8" neopreen under that to compensate the offset in the corner.

With all the gravel, and a few bigger rocks that I use to decorate, it sits just fine. I'll add 1/3 water and recheck just to make sure...........................2 more days