# 3 tier stand



## jonboy8465 (17 Sep 2008)

Hi all. I have acquired 3 4ft x 1ft x 1ft tanks and I want to build a 3 tier stand for them in my fish room. My question is if I bolt 2 2x4`s together for the back and the same for the front ,and fix these to 4x2 uprights at the ends with a brace  under them from front to back, will this be enough to support the full length of the tank? I don't want to have intermediate supports obscuring the lower 2 tanks. many thanks.


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## squiggley (17 Sep 2008)

Have a look at Tim Addis racks at TA-aquaculture.

http://ta-aquaculture.co.uk/Fish_House_Construction/Stands.htm

I used 3x2's to construct my stands using that design and held 3 tiers of 5' tanks


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## jonboy8465 (18 Sep 2008)

that's the design i`m after. just wanted to confirm on the timber sizes. If you have done it with 3x2 then 2x4 should be ample. many thanks for your help.


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## squiggley (18 Sep 2008)

This is the stand that I made.






This is the stand now, it had to be altered cos we moved house and I lost my fish room and half my tanks.
I originallycut it down to hold the two 18x12x12 tanks at the bottom and the 24x12x15 at the top but then altered later to add the two 18x10x10.  Its a lttle tight but I got two more tanks in


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## jonboy8465 (19 Sep 2008)

that looks good, just what I had in mind. Thats the beauty of wood it can be altered as your needs change. well done for squeezing in the extra tanks.


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## fishgeek (19 Sep 2008)

i alwast worry that with that design all the weight of each tier is being held on the screw fixing the cross bearer

what shearing force will varying guage fixings hold?
what happens when the fixing begins to corrode? 

wouldnt it be better to dove the joints so some load was transmitted to the vertical wood at the joint rather than just through the fixing?


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## squiggley (20 Sep 2008)

Each cross bearer is held in by 3 screws (two 1 side, 1 the other) and also glued.

I would make sure you have a bench saw or smiliar to make the cuts square


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