CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

I have a brand new 75 gallon fish tank with everything all ready to go except a stand. I saw a stand for 90.00 but I have to wait for it to be built. So I thinking of building my own stand for my new tank but I dont know where exactly to start and what schematics to draw up being 75 gallons of water is extremely heavy and with gravel and accesories will weigh a lot. Would it be cheaper to build myown stand?? anyone build there own stand?

yea it's usually cheaper to build one may not look that good though....I had one for my 55 gallon, simple with just some two-by-fours....with X crossbeamed two-by-fours for reinforcement...some people just put up some blocks and then put a board on top of them....

75 gallons of water is extremely heavy and with gravel and accesories will weigh a lot

Na,only about 700 pounds



Like Cichlidfish said it's not hard to build one.The hard part comes in trying to make it look real nice but just a stand it easy.

Just use common sense and some general rules:
(heres some I always think about)
always make sure you build it level !
screws or bolts are better/stronger then nails
anywhere glue can be put - put it (just not a place you'd want to stain later)
X's and triangle supports are always the strongest ,when needed
always predrill holes to avoid spliting you wood
when in doubt use 2X6's

Building a tank stand is very easy. I built one for my 100 gallon tank and it only cost me 150 dollars. I think it looks better than normal made ones. One thing you have to remeber when you build it is don't go cheap. Its going to be in your house for a long time and a lot of people are going to look at.
Thats one thing I did, I bought cheap would for my walls and it chipped off in one corner so I had to take it apart and repair ir.
If you are looking for a plan just go to a search engine and typ in "DIY tank stands". Look through a lot of them tell you find you are confident in. It took me about 2-3 weeks find my plan. It was a plan that was setup for my tank.

Heres some step by step pictures of a very nice stand a freind of mine built for his 125g.

Tank Stand