Charmaine

What would be the best type of wood to use for building a cabinate stand for a 3 foot tank.

belamyboo

pine is generally a good option, but I have seen recycled timber & driftwood used aswell. I would be careful though because it has to support a lot of weight so it needs o be tough, and you need to be able to make it as water resistant as posible.

Charmaine

for the advice. I think I will go with the PINE option.

Tavel

the BEST type of wood is a hard hardwood, like oak. But that's extremely expensive. You can get by with a softwood like pine, but spruce would be better (search on google to figure out how to identify spruce in the lumber yard, because spruce/pine/cedar are usually just labeled as "pine"). You will need to bulk up the rails and construction to account for the weaker material.

Use 6 vertical legs (4 corners, plus 2 in the longer span). The vertical legs can be 1.5x1.5", but I would make the cross rails the full 1.5x3". Also, set the upper cross rails on TOP of the vertical supports to minimize the sheer stress on your fasteners (I'm assuming you're not making some nice mortise and tenon joints, lol). Use diagonal brackets (1.5x1.5" if fine) on the sides, rear, and top to brace the frame against twisting.

You can secure the whole thing with deck/wood screws. But countersink them and plug them with dowls to hide them and make it look more like furniture.

now, if you wanted to put paneling on the side to make it into a cabinet, you can just run a groove along the insides of the vertical pieces and slide some plywood in as you're assembling the stand. Or you can screw the plywood to the frame after the fact, but it won't look as nice.

edit: if your aquarium is acryllic, you'll also need to use a THICK piece of plywood (like 1") on the top to support the entire bottom. Glass aquariums only need to be supported around the perimeter.

Charmaine

Thanx for all the advice you have helped me so much.

Christian Patti

Make a frame with 2X3's then put all your finish wood on the frame. Pine,oak, cherry, lamanent.. whatever it may be

In the members fish tanks forum you can go to my thread and see the stand I built to give you an idea. Although I made my stand almost 4 feet high so you don't have to look down into the tank.