Custom 60g cube stand

[Airwarf]

Hi everyone,
I'm brand new to this forum but not new to the hobby. Long story short when I was in high school my dad let me turn his 220g tank which he was basically done with into a FOWLR tank. I took care of it until I had to leave for college and we've since had to shut it down from neglect.

Now that my life is more stable after college I've decided it's time to get back into it. So I combine two of my hobbies (saltwater and woodworking) to create my dream stand. I settled on the Marineland 60g cube because of the pronominal price I found it for at my LFS.

I am still working on completing the doors but here are a few pics from the full build album. I'm pretty proud of this one

Side comment/ question: I have a birds nest frag atm, but I think it's going to die... Alk and mag is good but it's still browning. All I can think of is not enough light. I have a gen 4 xr14w pro. If you have advice I'm all ears. All other corals are LPS and are doing fine.

EDIT: sorry the images are kind of out of order, they uploaded funny. That steel tube is 1.25" stock at .25" wall thickness.

 

[plumber dude]

Looks really good!

 

[MrGemini]

Wow! That looks great, I'm jealous, I have a rimless 60g cube as well but have a kitchen cabinet that i reinforced with 2x4's for mine. it looks OK but very limited in space. I could only fit a 10g sump under mine. Did you reinforce the top with steel tubing?

 

[Jimbo662]

That's an amazing stand!

 

[Jisko]

wow that thing is beast

 

[914joe]

Nice job!!!

 

[Airwarf]

Wow! That looks great, I'm jealous, I have a rimless 60g cube as well but have a kitchen cabinet that i reinforced with 2x4's for mine. it looks OK but very limited in space. I could only fit a 10g sump under mine. Did you reinforce the top with steel tubing?

Thank you, and yes I did put the steel tubing in there. It might seem like a bit of overkill to some, but I wanted there to be zero chance of the 1" hardwood top from deflecting over time. So the steel is there for my piece of mind.

 

[MrGemini]

Thank you, and yes I did put the steel tubing in there. It might seem like a bit of overkill to some, but I wanted there to be zero chance of the 1" hardwood top from deflecting over time. So the steel is there for my piece of mind.

Nothing wrong with a little extra peace of mind, I say

 

[MrGemini]

but wouldn't it start to rust after a while with the salt creep?

 

[Airwarf]

but wouldn't it start to rust after a while with the salt creep?

It's coated with a "Steel Kote" to help prevent just that. Plus the way it's recessed into the frame it's never really in a position to come in direct contact with saltwater. But good question.

 

[don_chuwish]

Beautiful woodwork, clever grill idea for fan cover and a place to organize power bricks. Word of warning, if you have dogs or cats in the house, those case fans get COVERED in dander. I've put fan filters in front of mine now.