agabr123

Does anyone have any building plans for a solid stand for a 29 gallon tank for someone who is relatively inexperienced in woodwork/carpentry?

Any recommendations/advice would be greatly appreciated!

URFisher35

yes! i am actually going to buy the lumber now...ill hold off and redraw my plans on my comp and post them in 5

URFisher35

Here are my plans...they are probably overkill for a 29G, BUT i'm going to put corner joins on all corners and t-braces on the verticals...this will help prevent it from swaying(in the off chance it gets bumped REALLY hard....probably not necessary, but hey why not? hahaha)

The lumber you will need is 4 2x4s (each 2x4 is really 1.5x3.5) (8ft long).
The pieces are:
4 - 32"
6 - 28"
6 - 11"

These can be cut into the 4 2x4s as follows:
Board 1/2: 32", 28", 11", 11", 11"
Board 3/4: 32", 28", 28"

I would recommend using 4" wood screws.
Hope that helps! (I hope even more that i uploaded my plants correctly as i've never uploaded a pic before...)
I'll post pics throughout the day as I work...please feel free to ask any questions
-A

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URFisher35

oh yea...some afterthoughts...

1) place a piece of plywood on top of the stand. the tank will rest on this helping to better distribute the weight
2) you can make the stand as tall as you want, just change the height of the verticals (28in is relatively squat and thus hard to sway)
3)i plan on putting a shell and doors on it to make it look nice...thats probably tomorrow's project tho...again ill post pics

-A

URFisher35

so here are the top and bottom portions of the stand...the one that the tank will sit on and the one that will sit on the floor

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agabr123

wow thanks so much, that's very helpful. have you run into any problems so far or anything that i should avoid?

URFisher35

not yet...i just took a break for lunch and to buy more screws, so i'm back at it now. i do have a slight modification to my plan tho.

because of the doors i'm going to put on the front, i want the vertical center brace to be right in the middle of the front. that means the cross brace on top bottom pieces have to be slightly off center. see the new pic i posted...it shows you what i mean

also, it helps to predrill the holes on the first 2x4...not the whole way thru, but just enough to get you started.

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agabr123

what type of wood are you using?

URFisher35

oh and what my grandfather always told me...

"measure twice, cut once"
haha
-A

URFisher35

pine 2x4x96...they cost about 1.98 bucks a piece. i bought the grade 1 (less knots and a nicer cut for the front to make it look all nicer...they cost 2.77)

oh and when you predrill...use 1/8" bit

agabr123

haha, yeah luckily i've been repeating that to myself over and over and i haven't even bought wood yet! i'm not particularly efficient at woodworking but i think i can pull this one off

URFisher35

don't worry it isn't too bad at all...relax, have a beer or two, and have fun haha

agabr123

yeah i'm hoping it isnt going to be as complex as i think. i hadn't thought about corner braces before, but that sounds like a good idea. are you putting those and the t braces basically everywhere that you connected wood for the frame?

URFisher35

umm...to be honest yet...probably just corner braces on the supports at each corner, and t-braces on the center two supports

agabr123

what do you think about a frame that looks more like this to help distribute the weight? i don't particularly like that it's top heavy, so if i did this i would probably just do three and three

http://www.angelfire.com/d20/casualkeepers/stand2.html

(the other pages have the stand being built completely)

URFisher35

same basic design...we are only talkin about roughly 300lbs at most, so it might be a lil overkill. just my opinion tho.

agabr123

that sounds great, thanks for all the pictures and help, i'd love to see more of the construction and of course the finished product!

URFisher35

of course. i'll keep posting to show you what i'm doing. good luck yourself!

-A

agabr123

thanks so much!

URFisher35

all i gotta do now is add the two center supports and make it's shell...

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agabr123

are you installing a shelf?

URFisher35

Frame is Done!

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URFisher35

and yes...i will have a shelf on the left side and it will be left open on the right side (space for a 5 gal quarantine/hospital)

agabr123

that looks great so far, we just bought everything for the frame today, and figured we'd build that first before dealing with the plywood/covering.

are you putting doors? if so, where did you find them or did you make them? so far we've only looked at lowes, but couldnt find the cabinet door without the cabinet

also, we want to be able to have a drip loop in the back of the stand, but inside of it, and we dont necessarily want to just cut holes in it, what do you think would be the best way to go about that?

URFisher35

yea...i put two doors on the front. i got them off an old cabinet that was laying around my dad's place. you can easily make them tho...get some 1x3s. cut them to the height of your door opening (a little bit bigger so the hole doesn't show) then lay them side by side flat on the ground. put another 1x3 crossways and affix it to each of the slats by a short screw. attach with hinges. cheap and pretty easy. (on second thought, add a diagonal one too to prevent them from shifting)

for the drip loop, you can mount a power strip on the back center support relatively high up. this should allow the cords to hang below it to create a drip loop.