8020 aluminum stand question

reelss · Jan 17, 2019

Hi All.

Will a 48” span of 1530 aluminum hold a 120 gallon tank with no center support?

Designing my stand with 1530 top frame and 1530 legs.

Any help appreciated.

Reefer Reboot · Jan 17, 2019

Which grade of 1530 do you plan on using, full thickness, LS (Light Series), or UL (Ultra Light)? There are many calculators which you can google to aid in the design. Personal experience, I have 130 gallons supported on 36" length of 1.5" square solid extruded aluminum with no deflection. My best "guesstimate" would be (using full thickness) that as long as the longer width axis (of the horizontal spans) was in the vertical direction and the horizontal spans were supported on top of the vertical posts, I would think it would be more than sufficient. Again, just my best guess. Definitely run the math through a calculator for piece of mind.

reelss · Jan 17, 2019

Reefer Reboot said:
Which grade of 1530 do you plan on using, full thickness, LS (Light Series), or UL (Ultra Light)? There are many calculators which you can google to aid in the design. Personal experience, I have 130 gallons supported on 36" length of 1.5" square solid extruded aluminum with no deflection. My best "guesstimate" would be (using full thickness) that as long as the longer width axis (of the horizontal spans) was in the vertical direction and the horizontal spans were supported on top of the vertical posts, I would think it would be more than sufficient. Again, just my best guess. Definitely run the math through a calculator for piece of mind.

Was planning on full thickness. I will try to google the calculators and see if I can make sense of those.

reelss · Jan 17, 2019

Reefer Reboot said:
Which grade of 1530 do you plan on using, full thickness, LS (Light Series), or UL (Ultra Light)? There are many calculators which you can google to aid in the design. Personal experience, I have 130 gallons supported on 36" length of 1.5" square solid extruded aluminum with no deflection. My best "guesstimate" would be (using full thickness) that as long as the longer width axis (of the horizontal spans) was in the vertical direction and the horizontal spans were supported on top of the vertical posts, I would think it would be more than sufficient. Again, just my best guess. Definitely run the math through a calculator for piece of mind.

I am not sure how to interpret this. Its showing a deflection of 0.0221 inches. Is that good or bad?

siggy · Jan 17, 2019

Looks like thats less than a tenth of an inch....But any defection with that investment is no good. You will have doors so a center support would benefit both and is easily removable. BTW it could be a single instead of the double.

siggy · Jan 17, 2019

I just noticed that you selected load fixed between two ...select far right tab supported on two ends.....

reelss · Jan 17, 2019

siggy said:
I just noticed that you selected load fixed between two ...select far right tab supported on two ends.....

Its worse with that option:

reelss · Jan 17, 2019

Here’s a drawing of what I have planned.

The solid lines are 1530. There is an additional cross brace in the top frame. The dotted lines are 1515.

siggy · Jan 17, 2019

what corner bracket are you thinking of using? this will help to shorten the spans inside 90deg. also a long corner

reelss · Jan 17, 2019

Anchor fasteners.

Thinking about adding two center braces along the 4 feet length so the span is only 12”. Still only 4 legs.

reelss · Jan 17, 2019

reelss said:
Anchor fasteners.

Thinking about adding two center braces along the 4 feet length so the span is only 12”. Still only 4 legs.

Basically like this.

siggy · Jan 17, 2019

@HolisticBear bought a stand engineered by a company, cut and shipped. to try to get away with no center support for a tank that large is gonna cost $$$ ether go with the 3x3 square all around or go with a welded aluminum.

siggy · Jan 17, 2019

Looks Sharp I use this stuff at work and its solid if you use the right fastening HWD . You need to shore up the bottom corners with all that weight the bottom joints could fail
these are popular inside, below are outside flats I use and are rock solid. Still those legs look weak with 2k+lbs I would still go larger. Add the cost and thats why I mentioned a welded stand

reelss · Jan 17, 2019

siggy said:
Looks Sharp I use this stuff at work and its solid if you use the right fastening HWD . You need to shore up the bottom corners with all that weight the bottom joints could fail
these are popular inside, below are outside flats I use and are rock solid. Still those legs look weak with 2k+lbs I would still go larger. Add the cost and thats why I mentioned a welded stand

I am going with 1530 legs instead of the 1515 shown in the picture. I am also not getting the feet. The stand will be resting on the floor.

siggy · Jan 17, 2019

Give there toll free number a shot they may have a cut sheet and quote prepared already. Send it all in a kit all ready to assemble. good luck and tag me when your building

DLHDesign · Jan 17, 2019

Check out my new build thread if you'd like to see my experience with an 80/20 stand. I've built mine out of 25-series as it had more strength for my larger tank, but I think I could have (should have) used 20-series as it would have made it easier to get pieces (20-series seems more common than 25-series).

HolisticBear · Jan 17, 2019

siggy said:
@HolisticBear bought a stand engineered by a company, cut and shipped. to try to get away with no center support for a tank that large is gonna cost $$$ ether go with the 3x3 square all around or go with a welded aluminum.

I used Framing Tech, https://www.framingtech.com/solutions/aquarium-stands/. A few people have used them on R2R, I found the cost to be very reasonable. Basically help you design and flatpack ship you all the pieces and include a powder-coat service for specific colors.

Reefer Reboot · Jan 18, 2019

Something like this?

One more thing to consider. In your calculations you used 1400 lbs, which is a fair number to estimate the weight. But you put the entire weight on one beam. I have a sneaky suspicion that your stand will have a front beam and a back beam.

You might even have a couple of side beams in there too. Maybe even a solid top. This will help distribute the load. Rerunning the calculations for just two beams (700 lbs each) results in a defection of around one onehundreth of an inch, about the width of three human hairs. As mentioned above, just use good brackets and you will be fine. Good luck!

Bill Howard · Jan 18, 2019

I also have a Framing Tech stand, and love it. Anthony is great to work with and will build you exactly what you want and need.

reelss · Jan 18, 2019

Reefer Reboot said:
Something like this?

One more thing to consider. In your calculations you used 1400 lbs, which is a fair number to estimate the weight. But you put the entire weight on one beam. I have a sneaky suspicion that your stand will have a front beam and a back beam. You might even have a couple of side beams in there too. Maybe even a solid top. This will help distribute the load. Rerunning the calculations for just two beams (700 lbs each) results in a defection of around one onehundreth of an inch, about the width of three human hairs. As mentioned above, just use good brackets and you will be fine. Good luck!

Thank you for the reassurance! Much appreciated.