Building a rack ... finally

[brewmaster15]

Hi everyone,
Well Iam finally retiring some furniture and building a proper rack. I've moved a bunch of tanks to the garage temporarily and cleared out a corner of the room. The first rack will be 9 feet long , and will house 2 75 gals on the bottom and 8 29 gal breeders at the top.. There will eventually be 4 more racks in that room.
The plan I drew called for 2X4 construction, so I called my brother, a commercial contractor, and had him stop over to help me lay out the rack, and supports on paper. I showed him a few pics of those fancy metal racks systems some commercial breeders use, and a light clicked on for my brother... One of his main construction projects are building Cell phone towers. These towers are made largely out of angle steel... Hot dipped galvanized steel. Just so happens these towers are often worked on, upgraded, torn down, and built with material left over...... See where this is going ;D;D

Spent today cutting 3/8 in steel thats 4 inch angle Iron. We may weld it or use a hydrolic punch to punch out bolt holes. If it goes well, He has access to more of this stuff for my other racks. Whats amazing is the cost of this material. Its literally going to have over $1000.00 worth of hotdip galvanized angle steel in it. Its over kill for the weight it will carry,. but free is free, and it'll never rust, or rot.

I'm hoping to put this thing together this week. I'll take pictures as we do.

-al

[sgt95b]

Sounds like a winner to me. Post a few pics when you finish. Been trying to decide on a tank rack myself.Just can't figure out how to fit two hundred tanks into a 18x16 room.LOL

[limige]

cool beans brew. finally add some organization to that chaos?!

hehe,
hope you don't have to move them much, sounds llike the rack itself will be quite heavy

post some pics, we all like ideas,. let us know how things work out.
i started mine, built 2x4 racks, now i just need to buy some new tanks and put all the plumbing i bought to use.

where's that money tree when you need it?

good luck!

[gary1218]

Al,

Let me know if you need help installing a "spiffy" water change system on those tanks. I work cheap ;D

GARY

[chuck]

Hey Brew... When your finished with your brother, you can send him over to my place... ;D ;D
Can't wait to see the pics...
Good luck.
chuck

[Jason]

sounds awesome Al!

evertime I build a new rack, or re-build an old, I always next time steele!

its just the cost that stops me all the time, but if I had a huge free pile of the stuff I'd be all over it!

ever think of building a modular or universal type of rack system that you can adjust shelf heights on and move them arount the room in different configurations?

[mench]

Al,say it ain't so..all those "neet" tank stands are no more :'( :'(....Sounds like ya got a plan...and like Gary said,if ya need help with the water change layout ..as they say..."will work for fish"...or free too..

Mench

[April]

now that sounds pretty spiffy. just think how much faster it will be when their all togeather in a line.
I have tanks all empty stacked waiting for a rack..
one of these days..i;ll get it done.
cant wait for pics.

[brewmaster15]

Okay, .. Heres some photos of the project. At thsi point well put this thing together next sunday. its the soonest My brother can borrow the hydrolic punch from work.


This is a representative of the room before. Basically If it held a tank.. It was used...

[brewmaster15]

the demolition....

[brewmaster15]

....

[brewmaster15]

....The material

[brewmaster15]

...

[brewmaster15]

Now I just have to build the thing... and fill this space with tanks....

[brewmaster15]

hi Jason,
I drew this thing a bunch of different ways , even toyed with having it on wheels ;D Hopefully after working on this one I'll learn alot about the design side and can improve it.

Gary... I may be looking to work a deal here

-al