oh today we can start building the stands so the gallery is a bit of a mess but you guys are used
to hearing me say things like that i went and picked up some two by fours today we got 77
of them that's basically what i could fit uh for this run this will build me about
five or six of the 10 180 gallon stands that i need to build this does not include other ones
now as i told you guys previously i know for sure where a lot of these stands are going to
go for example i'm not building the 700 gallons aquarium stamp simply because i already have
a steel stand for it uh however that stand is only like 32 inches tall the tank itself is about 28
so that entire system stands five feet tall now at only five feet tall
that puts it to right here not that tall however we have to keep in mind that some people will sit
in front of the tanks other people aren't that tall it'll probably be a lot of kids in here in
schools and whatnot so i kind of want to make sure that they can actually actively view all the tanks
however i think like 32 inches tall is where the 700 gallon stands and i think that that's just a
little too short but the tank itself is like 28 so i mean it kind of makes up for it in height
so first thing i need to do is figure out how tall do we want
all of these tanks and that's kind of what you need to focus on when building your aquarium
sand is of course the dimensions what do you want them to be mind you some pre some normal sizing
for aquarium stands a lot of the times they're anywhere between like 28 inches tall to like 36
inches tall those are more the manufacturer's lines whereas 32 to 34 is the most common
the height of the stand is going to depend uh depend on a number of things
how are you actually going to be viewing your aquarium will you be standing
what will you be sitting most often where in your house will it go i mean you'll be
able to figure out the height but here's one here's like an incredibly important thing
contrary to what i like to tell myself i'm actually pretty cheap i know i'm a cheap guy
i try to save money all the time at whatever i can including when i look at a piece of lumber
like this this is a two by four that is eight feet long i think well it's 96 inches how many pieces
of wood can i get out of this to get the least amount of waste and there's really only like
four different dimensions when building a stand that you need to consider and that's the length
and the width uh that would be two and then you have your uprights and then supports those are
the four measurements we only have to measure four things when building your own stand now people can
argue what's the point of building your own stand if you're just trying to you know save money or
you know not do something specifically custom justin do it yourself doesn't have to be all about
just getting what you want but you can also save money you can make things tremendously stronger
they make more sense for your layout et cetera et cetera et cetera when it comes to stands i find i
have a really hard time spending uh money on a stand that i didn't build i trust my two by
four frames more than anything so when it comes to the stands at their heights i'm going with
32 inches tall and i know 32 inches is not that tall to measure it on here
that means these stands are only going to be to here like a little bit below my waist right to
the bottom of my pocket once we add the stain or the tank onto it which is another 24 inches
now we're getting up to you know shoulder height i can easily actually access the tanks without
needing a stool although i'll probably need a spool just to get to the bottom anybody of any
height should be able to see here i can't imagine anybody coming in that's taller or shorter than
like you know waist high and they'd still be able to see into the aquariums we also need to account
for the styrofoam as well as the plywood that's going to be on top of it which should add about
another inch so when i look at this it no longer feels that short we're standing at 57 inches
so now when we measure it we're at around 57 inches complete the stingray tank that 700 is 60
inches total so it's only a three inch different things three inch difference things are still
going to look pretty symmetrical i'm going to be able to access the tanks easily personally i think
it would be visually more visually pleasing if i had the tanks about uh six and a half feet or six
feet at least uh to the tops of the tanks i like to stand there and be able to see it like this
but this place isn't just about me i can't wait for people to come in here and enjoy it with us
anyways those are some things you need to consider when building your own stand
so in my opinion when building a stand the first thing you kind of want to consider of course is
the height but also consider all the off cuts and waist does it matter if you go with two inches
shorter or maybe two inches taller you want to get the most out of the wood because honestly right
now it's the cost of plywood and any kind of wood is through the roof i'll tell you why i love two
by four stands so much a two by four on edge like this at approximately three feet this is closer to
two that's actually 23 inches but um a two by four on edge like this three feet tall will support 800
pounds per two by four you go two by six and we're looking at uh twelve hundred pounds you
wanna go two by eight i believe it's like sixteen hundred it keeps getting more and more obviously
now which dimensions do you need and which size do you need all depends on the size of your
aquarium i'm adding in 180 gallon tanks on top of these empty that way over 400 pounds a gallon of
water weighs 8.3 pounds so we're looking at 1500 pounds of water 400 pounds of uh tank you know
added 100 pounds of decor 200 pounds like that i need to support around 2 000 pounds sounds a
lot like a lot but look at this 800 pounds 1600 pounds 400 pounds technically this will support
my tank we're going to get into the sports and how they work when we start putting all these together
i just want to get a lot of the technical aspects out of the way because we haven't talked about
this stuff in a long time how much does your aquarium actually weigh though i'm going to
give you guys a lot of rules of thumb that you can think on your feet with that you don't need
you know calculator or anything like that
or you know notes or having to google things i mean you're at the wood yard and you're trying
to figure things out uh upright two by four eight hundred pounds two by six twelve hundred pounds
two by eight i believe it's 1600 i'd have to check the uh information in my book but how much does
your tank weigh and how much does it weigh full and all of that
rule of thumb this is only a rough idea but they weigh about 10 to 12 pounds per gallon
and that is the tank filled of course you know if it's acrylic versus glass how much decor you have
it we're talking rough uh you know something that you can actually go off of for example if
i were to use that method with the 180 filled with water weighs around 2100 pounds 180 times
10 is 1800 you get like it's really really close all these off cuts that i'm cutting off
are going to be the width i have to cut an inch off of it but the only amount of waste that i'm
going to have out of all those two by fours is a bunch of one inch like little butts off the end
and with that you know next to no waste we're getting the height we want we're getting the width
and the length we want and we figured it all out without wasting too much you're gonna need screws
a lot a lot of screws these are just number eight two and a half wood screws works perfectly fine
uh i'd use drywall screws etc i've always used number eight two and a half though eight is the
diameter of the screw uh the two and a half is how long they are uh a two by four isn't two inches by
four inches technically it's one and a half inches by three and a half inches so you definitely got
to keep that in mind so if i were to try to screw these together uh i could go through this one with
an inch and a half screw but if i had another one that if i had one that was two and a half it
would go through this one and halfway through this like this you can even use a three inch screw if
you wanted to but i find they always come through for me see it's only a two and a half inch screw
so you gotta gotta remember these are not actually four inch or two inches thick but you know how
many screws do you need how many two by fours do you need is there a rule of thumb with that
and uh i'm happy to say yes i've built so many stands and you know so many different types of
tanks over the years that you know i can go to a store and if somebody if i was just at a
a wood lumber yard and uh i thought to myself oh i want to build a 120 gallon tank stand i'm gonna
know how many pieces i need uh how much supports it's going to need which lumber i'm actually going
to use et cetera and you guys are going to be able to do all of that just based on this one video
building stands is a boring type of video but the ability to build your own stand unlocks
so many doors for you allows you to do so many things that are custom and not right
now but eventually you save a ton of money so let's say you wanted to build like a three foot
long stand we'll do a bunch of measurements uh so a three foot long stand uh you'll need about eight
two by fours a four foot long stand and this really doesn't matter on the width as long as it's
not like four feet long and four feet wide like i mean a normal sized tank up to two four two feet
wide type of deal uh you'll need ten for a four foot six foot you need 12 8 foot 15. a 2x4 weighs
around on average uh 12 pounds so i mean we could really calculate exactly how much you're going
to need what it's going to cost what everything's going to away now building a the frame to a stand
should only take you about an hour um maybe less depends on how well you are with tools and whatnot
definitely be wearing eye protection stainless steel toe boats etc i'm really bad for not wearing
personal protection equipment so just cutting these up not taking too much time now i forgot
the floors were rubber so basically what i could do is um i need 22 inch pieces so that's that
board's 22 inches from here all i gotta do is put a board cut so it's moving really quick um i wish
i had my stand and i wouldn't have to worry about this moving around it could be so much faster but
i forgot anyways uh each uh i've got five piles of wood here i'm sorry six piles of wood and as i
get the parts for each one i just put it in its pile uh one of the things i want to talk about
though that i forgot was how do i pick a two by four versus two by six versus two by eight and it
just comes down to safety factors basically you're looking for something like i like to do a minimum
of a safety factor of four now what that means and i'm probably covered in sawdust and sweat but
what that means is that the stand will absolutely easily withstand at least four times the weight
you plan to put on it and we talked about how much 180s are going to weigh around 2000 pounds
and the stand design that i'm building here and you guys will be able to replicate quite easily
is uh will be able to support a absolute minimum of eight thousand pounds giving me a safety factor
of that four that i was looking for now once you see the design and what's actually supporting it
you'll be able to do the calculations as well you know how much each upright can support based on
the size of the lumber as well as uh that we just multiply that by however many supports anyways i'm
going to get back to cutting then we're going to put these together and you'll understand
everything so as i said only four cuts required to build these stands there's four different
measurements here we've got the main length uh then we have the sides the you know side to side
we have the main braces and then we have the the guides for the uh braces as well we've got
enough here to build six stands back-to-back now look at this if you calculate everything properly
you're gonna have lots of sawdust but these are the offcuts so like i said a few little
chunks these here i wasn't really the bigger ones i wasn't really accounting for but
like i said not a lot of waste here so this is one of the finished stand frames just the frame we
still have to put plywood on top as well as some padding and we need to wrap it so it looks better
um you know after that i got a few more to do ah so just to run through how these are actually kind
of put together you have the top form uh and this is just the what the tank is actually going to
sit on uh these are also just butt joints so you want the length of your entire aquarium plus maybe
about an inch if you want a little bit of wiggle room and then uh this is obviously the width but
don't forget to take into account that you need to uh so for example if this tank is 24 inches wide
i don't want this piece to be 24 inches because then i will have um this one and a half and that
one and a half inch six so we'll end up with like 27 inches of width so you just want to
make sure your cuts are done properly uh the second thing that you kind of want to focus on
that's one cut this is another measurement so once you get these two together you can kind of
move into the upright supports now the upright supports are these here in the back they're
actually not to the height of the tank these are only guides sorry i called them supports but
they're not supports they're just guides they give something for the supports to actually hold on to
because the support systems themselves is what is sets the height of the stand and what takes all
of the weight now for example in this stand we've got two two by fours in each corner two by fours
in the center if it's a six foot stand i'll build the center supports if it was a four foot one i
wouldn't even bother it's not that big um but with all of these support systems in it they
support approximately 800 pounds a piece we've got 10 in there the stand will safely hold 8 000
pounds of minimum this doesn't take into account the plywood that's going to be on it or what's
wrapping it that also helps with its structural integrity it also doesn't er take into account the
screws which each have a shearing strength of about i believe is about 50 pounds meaning it
takes 50 pounds of force to snap them in half and we've got 100 in there um so we're thousands and
thousands of pounds more than what we need here definitely a project you can trust and uh super
simple to do these guides here just hold the stand together and offer more support and hold up the
other sports as well all around this is basically the easiest basic design that you could do for a
do-it-yourself stand for your aquariums and it's the one that i've been doing for years and years
and years and it works never had one of these fail i have um put a tank on one with a it was
a glass tank with a flat glass bottom uh there was a pebble uh under the st under the tank and
you know had nothing to do with the tank nor the standards just that pebble i didn't get out of the
way in time when i placed it on there and the tank cracked my fault first time it ever happened but
uh definitely you know just because something's never happened to you doesn't mean it never could
with that said again five more to do today i'm going to get all of these done just the frames
and then i can move on to different things in the aquarium gallery for example i got
to build you know all these other stands i got to figure out the water change station
and more anyways guys hope you enjoyed the video if you want to fast track your learning and you
know really master do-it-yourself projects within the aquarium hobby and i'm talking
not only building the stands but build every type of aquarium every method of filtration
equipment lights you name it i wrote a book on this it's 552 pages it's called the ultimate
do-it-yourself handbook for the do-it-yourself aquarius i dumped everything into that book
i literally still go back and reference it and it's just an aw it's like a memoir
of every project i could possibly think of or that i thought that you guys would enjoy this
uh link is in the description pick it up if you if uh you think you want to do that
i highly suggest getting it awesome book i'll see you guys in the next video though