120 Gallon Tank Stand

[melissamott124]

Hey all,

I had a really nice melamine tank custom built for my boy. Because it's melamine it's a bit on the heavier side and I want to make sure I get something sturdy to hold it. I have a dog so I don't feel comfortable leaving it on or low to the ground. What do you guys use as tank stands? The tank is 4'x2'x2', 120 gallons. Any recommendations would be appreciated!

 

[KarrieRee]

A good sturdy dresser not a tall one but one that is like a chest size -- I bought one from a second hand store but my tanks are light - I have 2 Zen Habitats and they are not heavy - the other one I have I got from Home Depot its a aquarium stand -- fits the Zen perfectly
Karrie

 

[Draven88]

A good dresser will work just fine as suggested ad long as its in good shape to hold the weight. If yours is make out of 3/4 inch melamine like mine are your are looking at almost 100 lbs there (4x8 sheet at 3/4 thick is 96 lbs).

Another option would be to build a sturdy frame from 2x4 lumber (with a good top that has a couple cross pieces to spread the wight on the frame. If you make the frame smaller than the tank left to right and front to back (by the thickness of 2 melamine sheets) you can then clad in in melamine with doors cut out of the front and 1 or more shelves inside (and it ends up the same footprint). It makes a great place to store your calcium powder and vitamins and even a small bid of dubia feeders since they like it dark to gut load them.

Now you will want a top piece of melamine on the stand in my opinion as it will do 2 things. By making it a solid melamine top over the frame as well as the sides that come up to meet the underside of that top all encompassing the frame it will add strength and best distribute the weight. It will also make it 2 separate units so depending on how tall you go with the right binds you could actually warm the inside of the stand for a full dubia colony and with 2 layers (top of the stand and bottom of the enclosure) you wouldn't get the floor of the enclosure heated up. If you went so far as to use foam board inside the melamine stand it would hold the temps in even better and keep a good food source right there handy.

Of course i've described this at minimum the same 4x2 footprint of the enclosure, but if you wanted to make it wider or larger in general as long as there are crossbars to distribute the weight you can and that would give some space around the enclosure to set things needed as well.

In the end you could also get an a metal aquarium stand that works as well since the water wight they are designed to hold would be more than the melamine at that size. I just find that the closer I can keep the supplies for my beardies the easier it is to keep everything maintained the best.