Who would put a 40g cube on this?

[Reefer Brent]

First off this will be my first Reef
. I’ve been a fresh water planted guy for years. I just built a stand to look like my kitchen cabinets. I’ve never done woodworking but after looking at available options and not seeing anything reasonable especially taking shipping into consideration. I watched some YouTube videos of fish keepers builds. in most cases I felt they were basically good for showing me what not to do, after all this is going in my wife’s very well decorated living room so I knew it had to look good. I watched a couple woodworking vids discovered pocket hole jigs and decided I was gonna take on a new Hobby and learn woodworking. I bought all the power tools including an HLVP sprayer and the materials it ended up costing more than the stand would have but I will never buy a stand or use big box subpar stands again. Not to mention I’m now refinishing furniture and Building a shed in my backyard. Now I have a stand made out of top quality 3/4 Baltic birch and poplar Hardwood with screwed and glued joints. No more cam lock particle board with exposed edges. I caulked every joint and Sprayed it with two coats of exterior grade primer and top of the line Sherwin Williams Urethane semi gloss. I am still waiting for my leveling legs they got lost in the mail over the holidays I went with 8 legs low profile and rated at 330 each. If had not had to purchase the tools I could have done the build for around 400 bucks. The challenge was to get the 72g tank flush with the stand and still fit the 40 breeder inside and have room for bracing. It just fit. Only thing I might end up doing is putting a wider piece of 3/4 in the middle of the back for peace of mind. The piece I went with is about 5” wide. I might do that At some point. I have quite awhile to wait before I’ll be filling the tank. Holidays always crush my budget lol. Last pic is my kitchen cabinet for reference.

Looks just like the other cabinets! Nice work! I was thinking I would do something just like this. What is your calculation for the weight it could hold? Everything I read makes me want to over build a cabinet but the particle board stands that aquariums come with have zero aluminum or 2x4s.

 

[AlaskaReefGuy]

I actually did something very similar. I took the Diamond Now cabinets from Lowes and gutted them. Took the fronts and reworked them to essentially skin the stand that I made from baltic birch. Did the same with the canopy.

 

[Reefer Brent]

I actually did something very similar. I took the Diamond Now cabinets from Lowes and gutted them. Took the fronts and reworked them to essentially skin the stand that I made from baltic birch. Did the same with the canopy.

Wow that is a great idea and looks amazing! What size tank is that?

 

[AlaskaReefGuy]

Wow that is a great idea and looks amazing! What size tank is that?

Thanks. It's a 90 (36x24x24). Wife wanted it to match the kitchen, so I made it match the kitchen

At one point I started videoing my progress while I built it. I still have a ton of content but got really far behind editing it. I have the build of the canopy and the stand up on YouTube... but then started a new business, bought a helicopter.. and stopped spending my free time editing videos lol. Getting back on R2R has re-motivated me to start editing those videos

 

[Reefer Brent]

Thanks. It's a 90 (36x24x24). Wife wanted it to match the kitchen, so I made it match the kitchen

At one point I started videoing my progress while I built it. I still have a ton of content but got really far behind editing it. I have the build of the canopy and the stand up on YouTube... but then started a new business, bought a helicopter.. and stopped spending my free time editing videos lol. Getting back on R2R has re-motivated me to start editing those videos

Free time is hard to come by for sure. I have a large list of projects and very little time to do it. The new stand keeps getting pushed to the back unfortunately. I really like this idea though so will likely do something very similar.