Considering Replacing my stand..Help

[blazk]

I think have run outta room under my tank. Everything is so tightly jammed in with the sump etc i cant even clean the sump anymore. I do not have corals, fish only with live rock. Its a 4 ft setup with a 3 ft sump. Question is how would i go about swapping everything over? Besides the obvious of building the stand first.

I was thinking putting the fish, LR and sand into separate buckets with a heater and pump for the fish. Moving the sump and other stand out, putting the new one in its place and then putting it all back together again. Sound like a good plan?

Any help or suggestions would greatly help my cause.
Thanks for reading.

 

[bobby]

Sounds good. How old is your tank? How deep is your sand bed? If it's a deep sand bed I wouldn't mess with it. Instead I would lower the water down to the sand and then move the tank with the sand in it. If it's not a deep bed the I would also go ahead and use the move to clean it with old tank water.

By using old tank water you wont kill off any bacteria and will get alot of junk out of it. When I moved my 30 gal to a 40 gal I cleaned the sand that way and seem to help a lot with the algae film that built up on the glass.

 

[blazk]

its only a 1-1.5" sand bed so not deep at all. not sure how old the tank is as i got it 2nd hand. No cracks or scratches in it.

 

[bobby]

I would hope there's not any cracks.LOL You might as well clean it when you move everything. Putting everything in a separate bucket or container will work fine. That's how I did my move and I had no casualtys. I put every thing in a smaller tank with the tank water. I made extra water up so I could do a water change as I did the move and I used the old water I was changing out to clean the sand. Put everything back together and made sure both temps were the same and added everything back.


I didn't lose a single thing doing it that way and I had some SPS and a LTA in it. All did great.

 

[project5k]

I'm seriously considering building my own stand as well, for a couple reasons, first the one that i have now is that particleboard crap.. wet, swell, crash!

the second reason is really just greed i guess, and caring for the wellfare of my fishy friends, the way that the stand is now, i cant even get a 10gal tank in there and flat on the bottom(theres a middle wall)

so my thinking was to make one up myself. Now heres my questions. I'm a very accomplished welder, so i'm thinking steel. I could build it flat, straight, and super strong, and then just skin it with whatever strikes my fancy. But a few concerns come to mind. We are talking about saltwater, so rusting will be an issue, ofcourse i could paint it, but that only buys me time... I have equipment for powder coating, and this would really be the way to go, except something that large wont fit into my cure oven.

so... The other thought was wood. Now i can do most anything i want to with wood, but for me, i would question its strength compared to steel. and a comfort level thing cause i'm more comfortable with steel, and saying "thats way more than plenty strong enough"

so... what do ya'll think? I guess the most common is 2x4's and then skin it with ply, stain or paint to suit,

One thing that i'm definately going to incorperate into the new stand, whatever material it is, are removable end pannels so that i can slide the sump/fuge in and out if i ever need to.

One other thing that i had thought about, and may be a really bad idea, but i was thinking about putting it all on wheels. Just incase i ever needed to move it, i would at least have the option. I can get wheels/casters, and enought of them to carry the weight and then some, so thats not my concern, i would just want to make sure that i had enought of them with the lock on them, so it couldnt roll unless i was sure i wanted it to... the room that the tank is in is all lenoleium (sp) so rolling it would be the same as rolling it on smooth concrete.

Thoughts, ideas?

 

[daugherty]

so... what do ya'll think? I guess the most common is 2x4's and then skin it with ply, stain or paint to suit,

mine is just made of oak plywood and some 1x2's for bracing this stand is way stronger than any that you could buy i will try to get pics ot it.

 

[daugherty]

here is a pic from the back

front

 

[yote]

Before I set my 125 up,I thought about building the stand out some 2X2X1/4" alum.angle.But the saltwater eats right through most metals fairly quick and once alum. oxidizes,it looks like total crap.
Personally,I'd got with 2Xs and skin it with Adventech.Then you could weld an alum. frame to attach the casters too.

 

[blazk]

My cabinet at the moment is around 700mm from floor to the top of the cabinet, which is pretty low to the ground and being a pretty tall guy (6'3) i have to bend down to do everything. What is the ideal height for a cabinet?

 

[blazk]

Oh here is a pick of everything crammed in there. I had to modify the cabinet just to fit my sump in, which ill probably change. This is a pretty old pic since ive changed all the sump setup but you get the idea with the cabinet.

 

[Dusty44]

if you wanted to build the stand out of steel I would take it to one of those spray on bedliner places. Rhino lining or Line-x if they have those in Australia! Im sure that would protect it from the salt. The I may cost more for the steel and the spray on liner that building it out of quality wood though.

just a thought

 

[JAG107]

Dusty has a good idea if you still wanna go with iron. Personally, (an Ironworker speaking here), I'd go with a 2x4 wood frame. Plenty strong, no rust issues. Skip the wheels, I've had bad experiences moving non-liquid heavy items on these. Ball bearings all over the place, one wheel off the stand, now what the hell do you do?!?!?! FAST!!!!! j/k
OK look at this guys build thread for a 300g, he built his own stand out of 2x4's, and that thing looks STRONG. Look how he offset the 2x4s. Just some ideas....
http://socalireefs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5516

 

[dustin_P74]

i think people who build their stands out of steel are just over reacting, if a 2x4 is strong enough to hold a house up why cant it be strong enough to hold a tank up

 

[blazk]

i will be defiantly using 2 x4 treated pine frame. Plus i have all the tools for wood, nothing really for steel.