# my 240 aquarium stand project!



## Jared35 (Sep 15, 2009)

So my parents own a aerospace company and i have all the tools to make my own stand so instead of buying a very expensive stand and waste money i decided to build my own! Tommarrow morning my dad is going to help me paint it. Tonight where gonna prime it with a few coats then i will put a lusterless black paint on it, after thats all set it done im going to put a very high gloss. This paint is used for the f-16 and f-22 raptor so its kinda cool. This will seal out any and all water. ENJOY!


































































































LOTS of work lol

comment!


----------



## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

Nice job. How much do you save for builing you own? From the metal ive seen at home depot and such, it seems pretty expensive just for materials, or is it much cheaper from other places?

Are you going with a sump?

What does your parents company make?


----------



## Jared35 (Sep 15, 2009)

Well this was totally free i cant really tell you how much you save. we have a metal rack and spare metal goes there so i just happened to have the metal as you can tell its rusted ha its been outdoors. we have steel shops here in texas and its probley a little cheaper but like i said this is just left over metal that thank god was 8 feet long. i am not sure on a sump yet tho. some stuff i cant talk about but all we deal with is military just some examples would be the f-16 f-22 raptor and f-35

thank you!


----------



## Johnny_Zanni (Nov 8, 2009)

attach some sidewinder missles to the sides of that thing! dont let knowone mess with your fish! blow them the f*ck up!


----------



## His Majesty (Apr 5, 2005)

looking good thus far. although that meatl is hella rusted, might wanna polish that up just so it looks better. good luck with the building.
also it sounds like your paretns' company build some sweet sh*t


----------



## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

His Majesty said:


> looking good thus far. although that meatl is hella rusted, might wanna polish that up just so it looks better. good luck with the building.
> also it sounds like your paretns' company build some sweet sh*t


Thats a sweet company your parents have. i googled a pic of the raptor and it looks killer. You can just go over the stand with a wire brush or one of those metal wire drill attachments to get the rust off. Thats what i did with my 65g stand. I didn't build it, but i just cleaned it and painted it to look good. I used some outdoors paint, nut i forget the name. It was from home depot though. Finishes nicely with a plasticish smooth finish. Are you I think its called powder coating it (like they do to most aquarium stands) or just painting it with some home depot tank?


----------



## Jared35 (Sep 15, 2009)

Haha ya i love the business, im actually a mechanical tester there so i get to test and break all kinda of neat stuff. Well i was a little far ahead of you guys i took a dotco and got all the rust off. This process took about 2 1/2 hours it sucked and i was covered head to toe in brown ( i had a nice tan) Here is the tank with the primer on it. Im actually using a aircraft grade high gloss paint the tank is gonna be black so i will surprise you guys with a final pic of how it looks.

Thanks for yalls input!


----------



## the keeper (Jan 16, 2010)

nice stand,lookn good, you should take an old nuke and use it as a center piece in your tank.


----------



## marco (Jan 2, 2003)

i love the stand , you definatly saved urself a few hundred bucks. when i got my tank and gave the deposit.. i was excited, some nights i couldnt even sleep cause i couldnt stop thinking about it. yesterday a couple friends of the one friend that helped me came over just to see the tank and i didnt even know them.

looking at these pics makes me excited for you, cause it really is gunna be YOUR dreamtank

heres a pic of my 8'x2'x30" 300gall to stoke you up even more.


----------



## Jared35 (Sep 15, 2009)

God man that thing is huge I can't wait to get my tank. I'm suppose to get it Saturday! My 2 fx5 filters come tommarrow and the rest of my powerheads, heaters, etc come Tuesday. I'm stoked about decorating the thing. I did save some money and I'm happy about that cause I can spend more on decor and such instead of a huge charge on somthing wood. Thank you for the pics man I appreciate it. When you get a tank this big you never really know how excited your gonna be until you get a floorprint done. After building the stand yesterday and seeing how big it's gonna be kinda shocked me. You cant tell it in the pictures but in person that stand is huge!

Thanks guys


----------



## Soul Assassin (Nov 21, 2006)

Jared35 said:


> God man that thing is huge I can't wait to get my tank. I'm suppose to get it Saturday! My 2 fx5 filters come tommarrow and the rest of my powerheads, heaters, etc come Tuesday. I'm stoked about decorating the thing. I did save some money and I'm happy about that cause I can spend more on decor and such instead of a huge charge on somthing wood. Thank you for the pics man I appreciate it. When you get a tank this big you never really know how excited your gonna be until you get a floorprint done. After building the stand yesterday and seeing how big it's gonna be kinda shocked me. You cant tell it in the pictures but in person that stand is huge!
> 
> Thanks guys


good job and looking forward to pics of tank and Ps...


----------



## Piranha Dan (Nov 11, 2007)

Awesome stand. What size is that tubing, 2"x2"? Since you guys build jet parts I'm assuming you know what you're doing but the wall thickness looks a little thin to me.


----------



## Jared35 (Sep 15, 2009)

Piranha Dan said:


> Awesome stand. What size is that tubing, 2"x2"? Since you guys build jet parts I'm assuming you know what you're doing but the wall thickness looks a little thin to me.


its 2"x2" it does look thin on a picture but its really not. We have the exact same tubing on a rack we have and its only about 2 feet longer and 1 1/2 feet wider and we have it holding 5 tons of steel. so im pretty confident that this will hold. Every part of this stand is perfect the cuts are within .005 thousandths i went with a +/- of .005. the stand is so level and flat that all the pressure points are very stable and not uneven. When my friend wielded it he did full pin welds which are the strongest weld you can do. Also here are some updates on what we have done. We added some feet so that the square tubing does not dig in to the floor. what better way to add feet by using 1/2 inch steel : )

also my dad painted it black today instead of showing you what it looks like im going to let it dry and then gloss it before i post pics!


----------



## TJcali (Mar 27, 2009)

cool bro coming along nice


----------

