Joker3090

My first thought was to do the metal frame and bolt a light wooden frame to it so that you could skin it. There may be an easier to do it though.

I would use wood, way easier and won't rust If you look through my build thread you should find some pics. If you were closer I would help in a heartbeat @ no cost, I love doing this stuff. Good luck and keep us posted.

I am not sure, but it seems to me that you should be able to hold it up with a wooden frame, but that frame would have many posts getting in the way (making it hard to access the sump area) whilst a steel one would not. You will need someone to do the engineering for you, how much load each post and beam will be holding... Don't forget what sits under the frame, your floor... can it hold the load the frame is going to transfer onto it?

I would absolutely go the steel stand route for you tank. I've welded one for my 150g and a stand for a 325g as well. Steel offers you incredible strength with supports that are much thinner than wood supports giving you greater access to your sump. Not really that hard to build for someone with even a bit of fabrication experience and it should only take about a week of good fabrication time.

Attaching a wood skin is really easy through the use of knurl nuts that you can drill and insert into the tubing later on. They are basically threaded metal inserts that you drill a hole for and then crimp into the tubing allowing you to thread a bolt into to attach your wood faces.

Wood stands are easy to build if you know what you're doing. Your goal should be to provide adequate support, along with ensuring that no weight rests on any particular screw.

I'm doing a similarly large tank and bought a steel stand instead of wood. It looks much better, my insurance liked it over wood, and I paid less for it then I could buy the wood, paint, screws, and labour for.

So this is what we got done so far. I'm not Bob Vila so any suggestions or advice are more than welcome.

Thanks!

And a few more...

Last few...

I like it. It looks sturdy.

3/8" polished edges

More notes to self:

I would make the skimmer section 20" long, and the refugium 24" long. The rest would be baffles and return. Leave 2" between each baffle after the skimmer section.
The middle baffle should be 2" off the bottom of the sump. The display is 4' wide, while the aquarium is 2' wide. So if you wanted the return pump on the side of the aquarium, you can copy the Model F layout and drill the 180g in the middle of one of the long panels. You want a 1/8" gap on each end of the glass baffle for the silicone to fill.Do NOT wedge the glass in snugly.