A 55 gallon tank stand alternative: visit your local Restaurant Supply store!!!

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Lollipops

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Jun 28, 2017
Messages
72
You can see them in garages, warehouses, or restaurants... Those steel wire shelves meant to hold hundreds upon hundred of pounds... I realized, THAT'S what I wanted as a fish tank stand!!!

Mr. Sunshine, my 6-inch goldfish, lives on my patio in a little 10 gallon tank. I decided to be very careful with his second 55-gallon tank (seeing as I broke his first one!!! Thankfully not with him in it!). A sturdy tank stand would be key...

But as an outdoor fish, I didn't want cabinetry that would create dark spaces and attract black widows... I didn't want wood that would warp and weaken with weather and rain...

My solution? A dunnage rack! (google it!) Or maybe some short version of the super heavy duty storage racks you see in garages... But finding a version of those shelves that was LOW proved impossible... all of them were 4 or 5 feet tall, and I wanted Mr. Sunshine's tank to sit below some hanging plants in my yard...

Home Depot, OSH... no such luck... Until I found myself in a restaurant supply store.

276910.jpg

I ended with something like this :)

However... it's meant to support 600lb... And a 55 gallon will be a bit over... I bet the numbers are conservative when those shelving companies record them though.... :\

A normal tank stand is too tall, and about as expensive, if not a bit more.... Thoughts?
 
They are just about impossible to get the shelves level.

The ground isn't level where I am to begin with. I made adjustments, checking with a level to ensure the tank/stand would be level.
 
It will happen, just do not try and cut corners, nothing worse than have to tear down a newly set up tank because your diy stand failed and your tank blew up;) I've been there, it sucks.... I'm a carpenter so it was extra embarrassing. Glass boxes filled with hundreds of pounds of water are extremely unforgiving of imperfections in the surface they rest. Very! Unforgiving...
 
Back
Top Bottom