dmanatee's tank stand building experiance and garage take over.

dmanatee

dmanatee

Member
Hello all you out there in the fishworld, and esspecialy the DIY'ers. So here is the skinny. My boyfriend found me a 125gal aquarium and all the "stuff" for it, for my birthday, and thought it would be great to finnaly upgrade from my 55.
Since then we have been going back and forth over plans for the tank stand and the structual endevers that go along with it. Seeing as we are both engineers. I am a Civil engineer and he is a Mechanical engineer and a master carpenter, so you would think that this thing would be a piece of cake for us. Well instead, it has been too much over anilizing and not enough building.
But as we go about building this thing, I though i would share our journey with you guys because someone out there has probably been in the same boat.

I guess to start I should tell you our building materials:
Melamine sheets
lots of pocket hole screws
Launan skin
laminate top
wood glue
sub floor adhesive
steel angle bar
doug fir ply and planks (ripped to size)
lots of screws
and more....

this picture shows the bottom of the stand (usidedown) and grove for a shelf. and yes our garage is messy.
 
dmanatee

dmanatee

Member
we did some more work on the stand and thought I should post some pictures.We realized that we are in a time crunch now, because it just started to snow, which means using glues and any sealants will be a pain in the butt seeing as we dont have a heated garage. (darn montana)
This is a picture of the face frame, and stucture unit. (it is upside down and backwards, just to let you know)
And now the stand is starting to take a little of its shape. The top will have a layer of laminate and some decrative edging done, but we have a ways to go befor that happens.
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
Following along.... Curious as to the stand design, but what is the middle shelf for? Can you elaborate more on your filtration ideas; what is going under the stand?
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
That looks like my garage floor during the build process.....Tools laying keeping them handy!!!!!!
I never leave my router lay though......Looks very good, nice clean joints, and love the pocket holes.....A big fan of them myself....Don't know how I made it without them this long.......

Quote:
Originally Posted by dmanatee http:///forum/thread/381432/dmanatee-s-tank-stand-building-experiance-and-garage-take-over#post_3322247
Hello all you out there in the fishworld, and esspecialy the DIY'ers. So here is the skinny. My boyfriend found me a 125gal aquarium and all the "stuff" for it, for my birthday, and thought it would be great to finnaly upgrade from my 55.
Since then we have been going back and forth over plans for the tank stand and the structual endevers that go along with it. Seeing as we are both engineers. I am a Civil engineer and he is a Mechanical engineer and a master carpenter, so you would think that this thing would be a piece of cake for us. Well instead, it has been too much over anilizing and not enough building.
But as we go about building this thing, I though i would share our journey with you guys because someone out there has probably been in the same boat.

I guess to start I should tell you our building materials:
Melamine sheets
lots of pocket hole screws
Launan skin
laminate top
wood glue
sub floor adhesive
steel angle bar
doug fir ply and planks (ripped to size)
lots of screws
and more....

this picture shows the bottom of the stand (usidedown) and grove for a shelf. and yes our garage is messy.
 
dmanatee

dmanatee

Member
Thank you for those following along. I love the input, and ya...sometimes we forget where we laid our tools.
Just too keep you informed, the bottom shelf is for a long refuge system. The middle is actually for storage. (the thing will be in the dinning room so probably china and stuff like that.I know, weird, but its going to be taking the place of the buffet that used to be there. LOL) The tall compartment is for misc. filtration. Will keep you posted as this goes on or as we change our minds again
.
This is sort of what it will look like, (had to use paint because my Auto CADD system wasn't allowing me to Copy and paste this morning. Will try and give you better dims. soon)
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
My only concern is material choice for the stand.... Is it goin to be laminated? With the humidity and water spills that do occur, the longevity is questionable IMO!!!
 
dmanatee

dmanatee

Member
Luckily our house has the lack of humidity, a humidity percentage over a single digit is nearly unheard of -Darn Montana,
But you are correct the entire inside and out are going to be laminated, I also found out that my design was flawed, I thought the Refuge was being put under the aquarium, it is actually going to be behind the wall. I was very confused when I walked into the laundry room to find my boyfriend cutting a hole in the wall. apparently he felt bad about not having enough storage in the dinning room. That and he wanted a bigger refuge/sump system. (works for me)
And thank you so much for the concern, I was and still am skeptical about the material of choice, but will keep you all posted about whats going on.
"Well now I need to go out and do some sanding."
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
The issue with humidity isn't much concern with the house, but with housing a body of water inside an enclosed space there will be humidity from the sump which is inside the stand.
 
dmanatee

dmanatee

Member
Just to keep everyone up to date. Did quite a bit of work on the stand, and hopefully "cross your fingers" will be doing a structure test tomorrow.
We have the counter top and laminate looking very nice, and the ******** is being coated. The face frame has taken forever to coat, because the temperature keeps dropping. I will try to post pictures in the next day or so, if more is accomplished.
Oh, and installed the Refuge, and Sump in the laundry room and cant wait to hook it up to the display tank!
Thank you everyone, and I will keep you posted.
 
scsinet

scsinet

Active Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by acrylic51 http:///forum/thread/381432/dmanatee-s-tank-stand-building-experiance-and-garage-take-over#post_3323458
The issue with humidity isn't much concern with the house, but with housing a body of water inside an enclosed space there will be humidity from the sump which is inside the stand.
+1
The stand is looking great, but the point that Shawn is making should be seriously considered, especially since it's much easier now to change materials than down the road.
I used to build stands out of particle board and MDF, and discovered over time that no amount of laminating or sealing will prevent the water from affecting the material.
Laminate will stop water from reaching the wood, but along the edges where laminate edges meet, water will sneak in there and start to "puff out" the material, which significantly weakens the material as well as makes it look just plain ugly. I've also tried painting and sealing, and no amount of that works. I've stopped using particle board and MDF entirely when building tank furniture. The thing that I realized is that paint and laminate do stop an occasional exposure to water, such as kitchen counter, but in a tank, water is constantly being introduced, and is often not wiped up right away. If water hits the point where the tank meets the stand, capillary action pulls the water along the bottom of the tank's edge, and it's impossible to completely wipe up. Plus, when salt crust gets onto the material, it constantly attracts moisture from the air causing a continuous problem.
In my case, I have always used a timber frame for structural members, then just "skinned" the stand in sheet material to close it in. In your case, it looks like the particle board is the structural component, so I'd be very wary.
Your stand looks great, and I hate to give someone that has worked so hard on something bad news, but I'd hate to see a lot of water on your floor even more.
 
dmanatee

dmanatee

Member
10-4 on that one! we sort of scrapped the original build and have gone to mostly hardwoods and metal. We decided that the thing looks best as a work counter. Will keep you guys posted on the new build. give me a day or so. And thank you everyone for the input it has been instrumental!
 
dmanatee

dmanatee

Member
We are still hard at work on the tank stand. I loved how our work bench turned out...oops. But Homedepot is running a little late on our order of oak and birch so...we have time to work on the countertop I guess.
 
dmanatee

dmanatee

Member
OK the going is significantly slowed down. It dropped a foot of snow last night...
But in the meanwhile I worked on some panels that are going to be cut and melded in to the front of the oak cabinet doors for the stand.
Sorry in advance, I took these pictures while the paint was still wet so there is a glare. Also I took an artist liberty with these fish....so they are not supper accurate.
Clownish and anemone

hippo tang and sea grass

dwarf flame angel and rocks
 
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