Hi all,
I have my original 4-5 tank growout system that is 6 years old, and frankly, I've outgrown it. It had a very sturdy table with 4 squat 20gallon tanks by Oceanic. The tanks are very sturdy, very heavy, and they came with the overflow already drilled, a big advantage, and they were free, a huge advantage, but they take a lot of square footage, with the emphasis on square. They are more than a foot in each direction. Not frugal with the space, and that's what I lack the most. Space.
Another reason to tear down the old system is that the sump, under the table, is neary impossible to get to. The table is low enough, that if I turn my head sideways, and take my glasses off, I can get my head over one edge of the sump to see inside it, as long as I am in a fetal position under the table. Of course, without my glasses, I can't see anything. As I am now 6 years and some pounds older than when I built this system, it is increasingly difficult to do what must be done for the sump. After selling all the fish and draining and removing the tanks, I was able to disconnect and move the sump to clean it. It had about an inch of pudding at the bottom, consisting, I am guessing, of dead bacteria from the wet/dry.
Things I am learning: I had a false floor under the sump, because my basement is rather close to the water table, and when it rains a lot, we get water on the floor from seepage. I didn't want water to get under the sump and grow mildew there. The false floor has a lot of plastic feet on one side, and fiberboard on the other side, coated with something. The acrylic sump sat on styrofoam on top of the fiberboard. Upon dismantling the sandwich, I could not help but notice the fungus growing on the boards. In contrast, the table itself, constructed of 2x4 pine boards and plywood, and subject to several accidental overflows of the tanks sitting on top of it, looked good as new, once I cleared off the salt creep. The difference is, I had painted the table with Porch and Floor paint, and I had failed to do this for the false floor. The sump never overflowed, but the ambient humidity must have given the sump false floor is moldy population. I am treating these floor boards with bleach and then I'll paint them before reinstalling the sump. It is said that saltwater preserves wood, and I guess it does, but it does not protect against mildew. I'll be painting everything in the new build.
I have some 20 gallon breeders (12.5 inch by 30.25 inch) that were in an aquarium store that closed. I was going to lease some space and really expand at one point, but then I was offered a job, and so I did that instead. Now I am unemployed again, and I guess I've decided that I really don't want to work on fish outside the home. I love that i can just walk downstairs to fool around with the fish. So for right now, I'm just trying to make the best of what I have. I got these tanks in exchange for fish, and at a deeply discounted price, so they were practically free. A friend helped me drill them. They were stored under our house for the past two years in a crawl space.
I had to cut the table in 2 to get it out of the basement, as my husband has a bad back, we have a lot more stuff in the basement, than we did 6 years ago, to maneuver around, and I'm not Hercules. In my ignorance, I had overbuilt it, using twice as much wood as necessary. It was a good sturdy table. My son and I carried the pieces out.
I gave a lot of serious thought to using a prefab shelving system, either metal or plastic. The plastic ones are not strong enough, and the shelves are at a fixed distance from each other. The metal ones are subject to rust, and the really sturdy ones are too big.
I decided to build my own. We have new battery packs for the circular saw and drill, so I should be able to do this. I bought a dozen straight 2x4s for a ridiculously small amount of money, loaded them into the Prius, and drove them home. They are on my garage floor right now.
My husband encouraged me to work out the details with SketchUp. After a long struggle, I did. Let's see if I can post it.