Designing an Aquarium Stand; could use some advice.

[vim.au]

It seems the approved method for constructing aquarium stands is to butt join and screw loads of 4x2 together, then add a bunch of 4x2 props to hold it all up.
This obviously works but seems a little excessive, I think.

So I'm trying to come up with something different but as I've never tried to build something capable of holding up 400kg I'm a bit lost.

Attached is a sketch of where I'm at:



61x47x110cm
70x45 legs
70x35 other
diagonal bracing not shown
top is open (supporting tank on the rim)
second level down is for storage
bottom level to support shelves and small tank
timber will probably be either Queensland Kauri or Radiata

My particular concern at the moment it that there's not much left of the legs once the cross pieces have been let in. There's also a fair bit taken out for the diagonal bracing (not shown). :? Am I right to be concerned?

Comments, advice, laughter all appreciated,
vim

[Astrodog]

I would be a little concerned - I'd rebate out the legs a lot less, and rebate out the shelf stretchers to compensate. Otherwise I'd make the legs bigger - maybe laminate 2/70x35 to give 70x70?

[Christos]

I recently built one on this thread, http://www.woodworkforums.com/f11/fish-tank-stand-wip-slow-progress-116728/

The point that I would like to make on most of the shop built fish tanks is a leg is placed every 2 foot. I also used two part epoxy for the build as I thought that water proof would be nice.

[vim.au]

@Astrodog
I picked up the tank today and had a quick look at the available stands: looked like 70x19 held together with staples :o so I'm a little less concerned about the rebate being wide enough to take the load. I'll take more out of the horizontals, as you said :)

@Christos
Very nice! I don't aspire to anything that looks that good. Epoxy is a good idea, though I may have to put it all together first, then take it apart and glue it because I'm likely to mess something up.

Thanks for the advice!

[Christos]

It did take me a long time to complete. I think that I might have over engineered a little. I did take a look at the ones in the stores but only what I could by not getting sales persons involved. :U