Where to get a stand?

[sr71pav]

I'm planning on gettig a 90gallon aquarium and I'm looking for a stand for it. I would consider building one myself except I have no room for the tools necessary, and hence, none of the tools necessary (well, I guess I do have a hammer, but from what I've seen, not nearly enough to do anything really nice with). I've been to Petco and they have one that doesn't look too bad. I've also looked at BigAl's online andwondered if anyone had any experience with those? I'm kind of on a little bit of a budget crunch so I'm hoping to keep costs somewhere under $200. I just have this concern about 90 gallons of water breaking a tank and then flooding my place. Anyone have any ideas?

Oh, and I have searched eBay, aquabid, and the classifieds, but it's hard finding anything near Indianapolis.

 

[Tolak]

Take a look inside of the stand, see how it is built if you plan on buying a wood stand. It amazes me how some stands look really nice, furniture quality, and have 1x4 supports throughout. This makes me real nervous.

Plain metal angle iron stands, the black ones, are a good choice. You can dress up the bottom with some fabric attached with velcro, and it gives you a place to store your gear.

Steer way clear of anything made of pressed wood. If these get even slightly wet, which they eventually will, they will warp, and deteriorate. Tank goes down, lots of water. Bad news.

The tools I used to build the stand for my 65 would fit under the stand if I cleared out all the food containers, canister filter, hoses, and other related stuff. You don't need an entire wood shop to do a good job. You could get by with a circular saw, drill, & tape measure.

Check out http/www.garf.org/index.html The DIY section has a program for building your own stand. Just put in your numbers, it gives you a cut list. You will have a stand stronger than anything sold, for much less than you could buy it for. Other members here have used this design for building stands.

If you want to drive to Chicago, I'll build you a quick stand in half a day. Finishing the wood takes longer than building.

Tolak

 

[sr71pav]

You wouldn't have any pictures of one of those stands, would you? It looks certainly doable and cheap, but I'd also want it to look good.

 

[Tolak]

Let me see if i can do this right

I built that around February '94. Went kind of wild with the trim wood & doors. A more plain one goes quicker, as well as cheaper.

Tolak

 

[Tolak]

Here's a 55 on the bottom half of a plain stand. This is what the underneath is built like. You can skin them as plain or fancy as you like.



Tolak

 

[Tolak]

Here's the top half with a couple of 20's.



A plain rack stand like this takes less that an hour to build.

Tolak