300 Gallon Tank Project. [ STAND HELP NEEDED]

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lbry21

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Oct 7, 2003
Messages
13
Location
Coconut Creek, FL
Well been out of aquarium market for about 3 1/2 years now. My last setup was a 125 gallon tank and it was very enjoyable but it had to stay in Orlando when I made my move South Florida. Recently I just bought a Villa and now plan to setup another tank since my residence is locked for at least 5-10 years.

I just purchased a 300 Gallon acrylic tank, built in overflows etc. Tank is in VERY good condition and I got a great deal on it.

I'm trying to figure out how I want to go about building out the STAND. Has anyone here built a stand for a tank of this magnatude? This will be going in my home and I'm considering all possiblities. One would be to build it into a wall to increase the value of the property, etc.

I'd like to keep the WET/DRY, De-Nitrate system all under the tank in the stand.

The water weight alone will be approaching 2500lbs so I'd like to get as much feedback as possible before I start buying wood for this project.

Any comments would be appreciated.
 
WOW 300 gal's :D
First thing I 'd do is make sure the floor can hold that kind of weight.

By the time it is done & full of stuff it will be over a 1.5 ton's
 
peterp said:
WOW 300 gal's :D
First thing I 'd do is make sure the floor can hold that kind of weight.

By the time it is done & full of stuff it will be over a 1.5 ton's

The tank will be going in a villa that is one story. I have no clue about how they laid the foundation (thickness, etc.) Should I check into this prior to tank setup? I was under the impression that as long it was 1st floor it would be ok. The building was built in the late 70s not sure of the codes back then for foundations.
 
you should deffinately consult a structural engineer or at least a general contractor about shoring up the floor where you will be putting that tank.

as far as what kind of wood, I think doubled up 2x6 beams as cross members and 4x4 posts as legs would be more than sufficient.

another alternative would be to see about getting a stand built from steel or wrought iron ... it would be a lot more 'condensed' then a wood stand, and probably weight about the same.
 
After looking over everything again, I've found a spot for the aquarium. Building it into the wall wouldn't be practical at this point. So I'd like to construct a stand from wood to keep the costs below $300.00 with a finished surface.

As for brining on a GC to look at redistributing load, can anyone recall having to do this? Seems like this aspect would make this aquarium project not very cost effective. It may be feasable for me to make an entertainment center out of the fish tank stand giving the tank more room to distribute the load from. But the bulk of it will be directed downwards from the tank itself.
 
So how did it go? I just wanted to add my 2 cents, but probably a little late.

I was surprised to see when I helped a friend setup his 240gal that the stand had NO reinforcements. It was simply a box made from 3/4 plywood. That is how it came when he bought it new. I wouldn't trust it, but he told me that it had been setup for years before.

Let me know if you need a hand or anything. I am only a few miles away from you. All I will ask in return is help building my next stand. :)
 
Thanks Oscar,

I've been working on the plumbing this last week, I broke my digital camera so I'm missing out on the progress pix :x
 
Hope ya can get the cam fixed.
I would love to see more pix of the tank as you make progress.
Im thinking of building a 150-175gal.
 
did you phoned a metal shop? i work for one and we have made aquarium stands before and we have a paint shop too paint them any color you want and the paint it a powder coat so you can have texturized paint, thats what i would look into if i where you and its not all the expensive.
 
Updates on the tanks

We'll the 300 gallon is still waiting on me to get around to fixing it and building a stand. Over the last few weeks I've built a stand for my 130 gallon tank. This stand is super sturdy, 3/4 red oak ply for shell, base is about 100 lbs of 2x4's and some nice trim. It's taken about 3 weeks to complete this taking my time had about 4 sessions of 3 1/2 hours each.

Check out the pictures:
http://testurl.com/tank/1.jpg
http://testurl.com/tank/2.jpg
 
Well this is really late but, If your villa was built in 70's then you should not have any problem with the wieght. Houses that were built back then did not use premanufactured trusses for a roof system. therefore you should have footers underlying your load bearring walls such as exterior and the main enetrior walls. Also the concrete wouldn't long been considered actually cured. I hope that this helps. Oh yeah, for the frame of your stand I would recomend doubled 2x12 across the front and back with supports every 2 ft. At least a 4x4 every 4ft under the doubled 2x12.
 
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