60 gallon rimless cube build

N

newbie2011

Member
So i decided i would start a thread on my 60 gallon rimless cube build. Not only would i like to share my experience but hopefully can get some good advice on what to do next and other options i have.

To start I decided to go with a standard stand i believe i got from rocketengineer on here.

Now on this stand i wanted to make it tall enough that when you are looking at the tank you don't have to bend down to look at it. I wanted it close to eye level. With the tank I have it is 24 x 24 x 25. The height makes it perfect for a lot of viewing room. So i decided to go with the stand being 40" tall which makes this tank over 5 FT TALL!! 65" to be exact.



 
Now once I started building this I decided to go a different route instead of just wrapping the stand in plywood I wanted to add something different and neat to it. Me and my fiancé have tried to make our apartment to have a modern theme to it so why not have the tank fit in with it as well. so i remember seeing a bar from a while back on uncrate.com with a cool modern theme to it but i couldn't find the picture for it but i did find this one.



If you Notice the spaced apart panels on the side i wanted this done to my stand but in a dark brown color. So it was time to start the planning on how i was going to do this.
 
Also to let everyone out there know that doesn't have a saw at home like me. Invest in one!! I regret not buying one. I had home depot cut the wood for me and well lets say every cut was 1/8" - 1/4" off which really screwed me all up!!

ok so next after planning everything i went to home depot again.

Now how I planned this was that the panels would be spaced 1 1/2" away from the stand with cheap overlay wood for behind the panels and I would use cedar for the panels themselves. FYI i was on a budget that is why I decided cedar. Otherwise I would have gone with the more expensive wood. These panels are 7 1/4" wide with a 1 1/2" gap from the stand and a 2 3/4" gap spaced away from each other.

To space these away from the stand i went with 1/2" pvc pipe sense its cheap and easy to cut compared to trying to get the wood cut exactly without a saw and for weight purposes.
 
Now Icould not get this thing perfect it was headache after headache with problems and breaking things it was not easy for a first time stand builder like myself. I decided that i wanted two doors on this one on the front and one on the left side this way I can access everything and for the reason that the stand is so compacted that the sump would only go straight in which meant I could not see the side unless I had a side door.



once I put the panels on it all started to come together until I realized I can't build a perfect square lol. So i had to cut some pf the pac smaller than other which means some of the panels are 1 1/2" away from the stand and others are 1 5/8" and 1 1/8" but you can barely tell.
 
So for the doors I had to find hinges that i didn't have to drill a hole to set them in I just needed straight screw on hinges this was because the boards were only 3/4" the so there was no room to drill holes into them. I ended up finding some at home depot that worked perfectly and placed them at the top panel and the bottom panel. I finally had the overlay Board cut and connected the panels to the overlay board and then connected the hinges the panels on the stand. everything came together perfectly..... ok well it wasn't anywhere near perfect but the dark brown stain and the black paint for the overlay board will cover most of the defects up lol
 
I finally was almost finished i then went and filled all the holes up with wood filler and did a nice sanding on the whole stand. Now on the back i didn't worry about it really it honestly looks like crap but whose going to see it anyways!!

then next was the stain and the paint which was another pain in the Butt. But it did come out really nice. Here are the finished pictures





What do you think?
 
Beautiful stand. Came out nice being your a first time stand builder. I'm gonna keep this thread for references on my next stand build. 2 thumbs up.
 
Looks very nice. It would take a week or more for me to get that right. Question though are there plans for an auto top off system? Where is it going?
 
Great looking stand, I have a 60 gallon cube from planet aquarium, just went with a black stand from Coastal Design. Thought about building my own, but wanted something my wife would allow in our house. Yours looks very nice and modern like you mentioned. Are you putting a sump underneath? I made my own with a 10 gallon tank from Petco. Working out great so far.
 
Jade yea it took me a week to build it was for sure a pain. As for the ATO I know I want one just not sure yet how I could get one I'm thinking because the stand is so tall I could put a shelf inside to put a small jug and do a gravity fed top off. If not then maybe build a matching stand to go next to it to put other equipment in. What top off should I go with I'm on a budget but also don't want to buy the cheapest one out their
 
Here's some pics of my recent setup.

9e171b583199957162b09aee8a7f03ca.jpg
 
Amccann yea I wanted to buy one and honestly with the amount of money I spent on the wood and material I could have bought a nice one but I wanted something custom. As for the sump I do have one but idk if I want to use it because of the way it is designed and it is almost to long I'll post pics of it in a little while. Amccann can you post pics of your sump?
 
I'm looking at the Hydor ATO, good video review on Bulk Reef Supply, decent price and seems reliable.
 
amccann said:
I'm looking at the Hydor ATO, good video review on Bulk Reef Supply, decent price and seems reliable.
Click to expand...

Yea I'm thinking on looking into that! My tank is also planet aquarium does yours have the black trim at the bottom? When I bought this I was worried that the old owner removed the top trim from it since it has black trim on the bottom.
 
also I'm looking into the mp40s or can i go with a mp10 on this? I'm wanting to put them on the back wall so you don't see anything on the sides
 
How thick is the glass? IIRC, MP10s are limited to less than 1/2 inch. Two MP40s would be a lot of flow in that tank!
 
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