Just had a DIY idea for stand and sump.

[tjm80]

I was looking at some plywood aquariums online yesterday, mainly out of curiosity. (A wooden aquarium?) lol

I'm sure someone's either already tried this or figured out why it wouldn't work, but I figured I'd throw the idea out there anyway.

Apparently the plywood aquariums, if built right, can be very strong and long lasting aquariums. Is there any reason you couldn't build a stand for a glass or acrylic aquarium, and build your sump into the base of the stand, not unlike a plywood aquarium. There wouldn't really be a need for the glass front though, unless you just wanted it.

I'm curious to see what others think.

[Smitty]

You absolutely can do this. I love reading about the people making the 8' long 4' deep aquariums out of plywood and epoxy. Other than the cost of ownership I would love to have something like that.

The biggest thing I would say is that you would probably want to make the stand a little larger than you need, or make the sump inside the stand a little smaller only so you have room to store other things down there (basically don't make the sump the whole stand unless you have somewhere else to store stuff. It should function just fine if sealed properly.

It would actually be easier to do this as a sump than a fish tank with a glass front because you don't have to worry about sealing the glass.

[BigJim]

+1 You could build the sump into the stand, but you may want to keep it a separate piece for ease of future modification.