Suitable fish tank support

[Anonymous]

I am venturing into the world of tropical fish i have bought the tank but i now need a stand for it that will be strong enough to support 126kg when it is up and running as the stand that can be purchased for the tank is to big for my sitting room has anyone any tips on jointing methods and types of wood or man made woods bearing in mind i don't have the facilities for M&T joints but i do have a biscuit jointer any advice would be greatley appreciated.

 

[Noel]

Derek, you could trawl your way through this thread
https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/view ... 85&start=0
and maybe catch a few ideas. Can't remember if the stand was actually built or completed (you out there Digizz?).
Personally, the only fish support I encounter is a plate, on Fridays...

Noel

 

[pooka]

I have a 125L tank (Juwel Rio 125) for which I made a support/cabinet from 18mm birch plywood (with a 25mm birch plywood top). It is basically a three sided cabinet, with double doors on the front, and an internal adjustable shelf. I wondered whether I would need a central support too, but nearly two years later it shows no sign of struggling with the weight. I based it on the Juwel cabinet (you can see them at http://www.juwel-aquarium.com) so it is basically functional rather than particularly attractive.

Out of curiosity to try it, as much as anything else, I attached the sides and back of my cabinet to the top and base using mortice and tenons (which I cut with handsaws and router). It worked out fine, although it was probably overkill - I'd imagine that biscuits might work just as well for my style of cabinet (the top and bottom overlap the sides, so the top and bottom of the cabinet bear all of the weight rather than the joints bearing the weight).

I was nervous about coming down some morning to find my fishtank in smithereens on the floor, due to the cabinet not being able to bear the weight (the few weeks spent establishing the tank's nitrogen cycle before introducing the fish meant that any disaster with the cabinet would at least not kill any fish, which gave me some peace of mind at least), but it was fine. Having seen the cabinets that Juwel themselves sell, I shouldn't really have worried - they are 18mm (I think, possibly even less but certainly no more than 18mm - can't remember properly at this stage) laminated chipboard and they don't look very robust (although they seem to be as I have heard from people that use them).

 

[Anonymous]

Pooka any chance of a picture just so i can grab a few ideas.

 

[pooka]

Hi derek681,
I have put a few pictures here:

http://photobucket.com/albums/y206/pook ... m-Cabinet/

As I say, it is really just a functional thing rather than anything particularly good to look at. The bun feet are particularly ugly, but they were the most robut things that I could find available at the time (I really went the route of over-engineering the cabinet, just to be sure that it wouldn't collapse - the back wall of the cabinet is 18mm birch ply too, for the same reason). I ran out of void-free birch plywood though, so had to live with one of the doors having an ugly patched area on the inner face

I hope this helps. Let me know if I can help further.

It occurs to me that your requirements might be different to mine - my tank is entirely self-contained so I didn't need any extra storage for external pumps and the like. Mind you, because of the back panel of the cabinet being 18mm thick, it would be easy to add an external shelf to it back there, out of view.

...and a (hopefully) useless piece of advice: when positioning your tank, make sure that you really really won't need much access behind it in the future. Shortly before my tank was up and running (and therefore largely immovable), a magpie and starling decided to drop into the closed up fireplace behind where I had put the cabinet. They were both alive, and we were able to get them out of there by moving the cabinet, removing the vent, and holding an empty catbox in front of the opening which they gladly hopped into (felt like an episode of Laurel and Hardy!) and we released them outside. That event encouraged me to leave enough clearence to be able to get behind the cabinet should I ever need to. And we had the chimney capped!