DSwofford

I wouldn't call myself cheap but I do like to save money when I can. I have purchased almost all of my tanks off of craigslist and have gotten some amazing deals. My last tanks purchase was a 135 gallon Oceanic tank, 29 gallon show tank and a 30 long and all came with stands for $200 bucks. Not bad if I do say so myself. The only problem was the stand for the 135 gallon tank was ugly to say the least. Well maybe not ugly, it was very rustic looking and didn't fit with my decor at all. So, I decided to build my own. I designed some great plans and was about to purchase the wood for it when I stumbled upon yet another craigslist steal. 110 gallon wood stand for $30! I couldn't buy the materials that cheap. There were two problems with the stand though: 1. It was 17" deep and my tank is 18.5" deep 2. It was a plain Jane store bought stand. Below is my transformation of this stand. I will continue to update this thread until it is done. The DIY post was kind of an after thought so bear with me on the first pic

The first thing I did was add 1x6s to the top and bottom to accommodate the wider tank.






Now to put the 1x4's around the top of the stand to cover the 2" plastic trim on the tank. I miscalculated the amount of 1x4s needed so I decided to go ahead and wire the inside of the stand. I am putting a 48" inch t8 fluorescent fixture inside the stand along with 7 outlets to run filters, pumps, heater, UV Sterilizer and whatever else I decide to run on this tank.

Here is the guts of the fixture with flexible conduit ran to the boxes, outlets are wired up and ready to hang. I wired a heavy duty grounded pigtail into the bottom box, this provides juice to the outlets and fixture. Wiring is simple. Black (hot) goes to brass colored terminals, White (neutral/common) goes to silver colored terminals, bare goes to green ground screw.



Installed.


Plenty of light. You'll notice a treated 2x4 in the pic, I had to add this as the stand was missing one of the supports!



1x4s and finishing trim will be added tomorrow. Then there will be a floor put in along with a board to hang the uv sterilizer and finally a nice coat of black paint. I'll update it as it progresses.

Feel free to throw out any ideas or suggestions.

aquarist48

Hello DS. Wow! What terrific finds! Looks like you're doing a wonderful job and you have a great talent as well! By all means keep us updated.
Thanks!
Ken