Phase 1 Aquarium Racks
Phase 1
(This page was originally written in the Fall of 2005.)
My main aquarium interests are dwarf cichlids, wild-type bettas, small chracins and cyprinids, plants and a few killifish and rainbows. I like small fish that can be kept in small tanks with other fish and lots of plants. I have decided that the largest aquarium in my fish room will be a 75 gallon… maybe in phase 3 or 4.
Phase 1 consists of two aquarium racks. The larger rack fills the largest unobstructed wall in the fish room (the East wall) with a rack of tanks ranging from 15 gallons to 33 gallons, and a single rack of six 40Br tanks that fit neatly to the right of the stairs on the West wall. These two racks will be referred to as the ‘East’ and ‘West’ racks.
The East Rack
I have built many lumber-constructed fish racks in the past, and I usually follow a simple component formula. Shorter racks are easier to make squarely, so I have always made several small racks that fit side by side to span the length of the wall I am covering. This project, however, was different in that the space was very limited and I needed every available inch. I chose to construct one long rack instead of building multiple shorter racks.
The first problem I ran into was finding straight lumber in 14 foot lengths. I am sure that the employees at Stoughton Lumber think that I am extremely anal retentive, but they politely helped me sort through about 100 boards to find six that were straight enough for my needs. I settled for 2×4 boards that had some bow front to back, but I did not accept any boards with twist in them. These long boards were needed to span the length of the rack and are the boards upon which the tanks rest. The vertical supports were cut from 8 foot boards. I also chose as straight a board as possible, but a straight 8 foot board is easier to find.
I had some very detailed drawings of the rack before I built it, but they are lost. I will cover how I measured and determined spacing in the section on Phase 2, for which I still have the drawings. The first physical task was to cut all the lumber pieces to the correct lengths. I carefully measured one board for each dimension and cut it. I then used that board as a template for all the other boards of the same dimension. This method reduces measuring errors, and if there was a measuring error on the first board it is repeated for all of them and will not affect the stability or squareness of the rack.
After the initial cut for length, I then measured and marked the points on the template boards where they would be connected to other boards. The templates were then used to make the same marks on the other boards. The use of a template makes the job go a lot faster as well as reducing the risk of measuring errors.
The use of a template was so easy that I then made my first mistake. I decided to go ahead an drill the bolt holes in the vertical support boards. My thought was that by doing so it would be easier to simply line the vertical board up with the horizontal board in the correct position and use a pencil to mark where the hole on the horizontal support needed to be.
I then laid out one side of the rack on my driveway to mark the locations of the holes for the horizontal boards.
All of the boards were now cut, marked and drilled and ready to be carried into the fishroom for assembly.
The assembly presented some problems. The biggest issue was that the bolt holes did not line up exactly and some needed to be redrilled or widened a bit to allow the passage of the 5/16″ bolts. The task took a while (I was doing this by myself, and wrangling 13 foot boards is not easy), but the rack did finally fit together.
The hardware that I used for this rack included two 5/16″ bolts with washers for each joint in the rack. The cross members were screwed to the ends of the horizontal supports with 5/16″ x 3″ lag bolts for which I predrilled a hole. The cross members are what provides the front to back spacing. This is important since the tank edges rest on the center of the horizontal support boards. The boards must be a consistant distance apart. The plan of using long boards proved to be a mistake because the bow in the boards made the distance between front and back inconsistant. I came up with a cool way to fix that problem. I purchased six pieces of 1/4″ threaded bar in 18″ lengths (the distance front to back for this rack was 14″). I drilled holes in through the vertical and horizontal boards where they joined and pushed the threaded bar through. I put a washer and nut on the bar, then another nut and washer, then pushed the bar through a hole opposite so that the bar spanned the rack front to back. Nuts and washers were then threaded onto the threaded bar on the outsides of the rack. By tightening and loosening the nuts on the threaded bar I was able to spread the stand where it was too narrow and squeeze it where it was too wide. The tag ends of the threaded bar on the outsides of the stand were trimmed with a hack saw. The result was a stand with perfectly straight tank supports.
When the rack was all finished I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually level!
The tank shelves are lined with a sheet of 3/8″ high density insulation foam board. The foam will allow for any small discrepancies with the levelness of the rack. Water will always sit level with gravity. The weight of the water in the tank applies pressure on the narrow edges of the tank trim. If the tank is not perfectly level the pressure is not equal all the way around the tank. This is a problem for large tanks (100 gallon +), but not much an issue for smaller tanks where the weight of the water is not generally enough to make the tank pop a seam (bad… very bad). The foam is conpacted more in areas where there is more pressure, and less where there is less pressure. This will level the tank. If the discrepancy in levelness is greater than a couple millimeters, however, the foam trick will not work. A level tank rack is what you strive for, and the foam helps a little in the end. It is also great for preventing heat loss to the air from the underside of the tank, or keeping the lights hung under the tank (illuminating the tanks below) from overheating the aquarium.
I painted the stand with a flat latex paint of a dark blue color. The tanks are all painted with a flat latex paint of a slightly lighter blue on the sides and the back. I learned that I should have painted the wood before assembling the rack. It is much easier that way (see Phase 2).
The East rack has a total of sixteen aquariums on it. There are six 20H tanks on the bottom, two 33-long and two 15-gallon tanks on the middle rack, and six 15-gallon tanks on the top. The house support beam was an obstacle for the top level. I accomodated this by adding a vertical support immediately below where the beam would be.
The lights in this rack are all shop lights that can power two 40-watt florescent bulbs. I chose the more expensive shop lights with better reflectors, pull chains for turning them on and off, and an outlet on the end opposite the power cord so that the fixtures can be dasiy-chained. All of the fixtures have two 6500K daylight bulbs that I can purchase at any large hardware store for $5 each, and they provide a brighter intensity for plants than a standard $15 aquarium bulb which are only 3500K.
The West Rack
Compared to the East rack the West rack was a piece of cake. This rack holds six 40Br aquariums. The rack is actually a 72″ x 18″ ‘gorilla’ storage rack with a 1500-pound per shelf weight rating. Each shelf holds two tanks end to end. With water and some gravel I suspect that each shelf is holding about 700 pounds… well within the weight limits.
The only problem was that the trim on the tanks is slightly larger than the 18″ width of the shelves. The shelves are made to have a piece of plywood lying in them, so I took advantage of this and cut a 1″ thick piece of plywood for each shelf. On top of that plywood I placed a piece of 3/8″ foam board. On top of the foam I placed a sheet of 1/2″ plywood that is 19″ in width, so it overhangs the shelf by 1/2″ on either side. The tanks sit on this plywood with their trim parallel with the edge of the metal shelf. The foam is working its magic in between the two peices of plywood.
The cost of this rack is probably more than it would have cost me to build it out of lumber. It sure went up fast though!
This is probably a good point to mention that my Dad, Jim, who will read this, is either laughing histerically or sitting dumbfounded at my accomplishment of building these racks. I have him to thank for most of the tools that I own, but when he tried to teach me how to use them, many years ago, I was somewhat disinterested. Something rubbed off though, because the racks are pretty solid. Sorry, and thank you, Dad.
