Shelps and Kein, Thanks for the advice! I think I just needed the nudge not to be so cheap. The extra $25 for the new pane will be well worth the piece of mind. I ordered the glass today, if I get the time I will cut out the old pane tomorrow.

Sweet! Now we can all sleep at night knowing we won't wake up to another, "OMG my tank exploded! I'm getting out!" thread :-D. Seriously though, that is a very small price to pay for that peace of mind.

The Stand
 

Most of the pictures and work posted was done over the summer. Now things will start to happen in real time. The tank build thread I hope will motivate me to do things in a timely manner.

I probably would have built the stand of wood but my brother-in-law is a welder and had some 2X2 steel. I figured the strength of the steel and the smaller space it takes up might be a bonus.

We welded up the steel.
http://i635.photobucket.com/albums/u...CornerWeld.jpg

This is my brother-in-law not using a mask, he is from Naples, where they measure a man's testicular fortitude by their reckless behaviour. He tacked and I welded(I wore a mask!). He is adding corner braces, he insisted that it would help if people tried to shift the aquarium once it was loaded. I told him it wasn't going to happen, he wanted to do it anyway. He repairs cranes! Who am I to argue with an overbuilder.

http://i635.photobucket.com/albums/u...alat/Brace.jpg

He grinded the welds.

http://i635.photobucket.com/albums/u...alat/Grind.jpg


And I spent most of the weekend grinding and using a wire brush taking the stand down to bare metal. I put two coats of primer on and I should be able to hit it with paint tomorrow or this weekend.

Thanks for checking it out.

Joe.

Finished painting the stand when I realized that one of the Corner Braces would be in the way of the overflow drain. I cut it out and hit it with some paint.
http://i635.photobucket.com/albums/u.../StandDone.jpg

I was going to leave it like that as I was out of white paint then I thought what would one of those people with the really great set ups do. So I went out and got more paint. Need to get the garage up to a suitable temperature and hit it again to cover up the yellow.

http://i635.photobucket.com/albums/u...lat/Corner.jpg

wow can you make me one? :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:

Nicely done! Reminds me of Khaos's overbuilt stand....I love it:lol:

Now THIS is a real man's man!



http://i635.photobucket.com/albums/u...alat/Brace.jpg

OMG
Quite a bit of UV light there thats for sure. Hopefully he has sunscreen on!

Sweet Build looking forward to further posts and pics.

J

wow your brother in law has balls. well at least he is wearing safety glasses (even though that is still not enough). looks like a cool project