After my first tank, a 75G Mbuna tank in the house, I gathered a group of smaller tanks in my garage, ending up with a 29G and 3 10G tanks scattered around on convenient horizontal surfaces. After some internet research and tool acquisition, I purchased some lumber and made my first stand. It's level, and pretty sturdy without being severely overbuilt like many I saw online. I've moved the four garage tanks to the new stand as shown. It's 65 inches wide, and the shelves are at 19 inches and 52 inches off the ground, and there is 28 inches between the bottom shelf and the upper 2x4. That 29G is 18" tall or so, and I wanted at least 10" clearance. I have to get on a step stool to reach into the back of the 10G's, but did my first water changes tonight and it wasn't too bad. As you can see, there is room for an additional 30" tank (likely a 29G), OR, if I can find a suitably low profile 60" tank, I think I'd put that on the lower shelf, and move the 29G to an as yet unbuilt project!
Finished product
Garage lights off for better viewing
Wider angle shot, the 40G breeder to the left is sitting on a piece of old furniture that is my next project, I think.
reverse angle shot, convenient access to the deep sink, water changer currently attached!
FTS of the 29G, has 6 juvie common Kribs and 4 young Laetacara Buckelkopf. Not in love with the background, but been too lazy to replace it with a plain black one just yet
The left most 10G, white clouds and some pseudomugil gertrudae, lots of RCS. Rescued this from a neighbor who was moving to Canada and couldn't take it with her. It was my first MTS acquisition, and is a dirted tank, which has been nice to experiment with
The middle 10G, 9 Harlequin rasbora and 6 bronze corys. This is a month ago...
... and after a visit to the co-op for some new manzanita and a slight re-scape, stood one of the bogwood pieces up in the back right, with attached narrow leaf Java Fern, pushed the sword back a bit, added the branch for some midwater cover and interest. Both rasboras and cories seem more comfortable, neither really used the dense area of java fern previously.
Finally, my 10G fry tank with 4 1.25" maingano mbuna in it. Some of the java fern here came out of the last tank, stuck it in here to save it for a future tang tank.
Thanks for looking, stand was a fun project, looking forward to the next one!