A friend of mine gave me a standard 75 gallon tank to replace my standard 55 gallon. However, since there was no stand and canopy that came with it and there were none available I decided to build one. I started this project in August of 2005 with the stand that had to be completed by the time QT was up for new fishes that were going into the diplay. The thought was that once the stand was completed, the transfer from 55 to 75 could take place. Live stock from the 55 would go into QT tank, everything else transferred and then have things settle. Once the sand storm went down and parameters seemed correct, then the transfer of all the live stock from the QT would happen.

The canopy was not started until January of 2006 after the purchase of a 2 x 250W MH retrofit kit and took a couple of weeks to complete and place into operation. At the time of this writing I am in the process of getting ready purchase and install SilenX fans to help keep the tank cool.

Stand

In designing the stand, the main requirement was to be able to get a sump refugium under the stand easily. This meant in my book 'not having a center brace'. After searching the net for a few days I finally ended up basing my stand on a design from GeoffreyB on the DFWMAS.org DIY Forum. Information on his design can be found here (INSERT LINK TO ARTICLE HERE) and should be reviewed as I did not take any pictures at all of the actual frame building process.

Since there is no center brace, the design of the doors had to be thought out differently as well. The doors were to be constructed from 1/2 plywood pieces that was also skinned the frame of the stand. The doors were also arranged with hidden hinges and trim to hide the seams. The doors open to the outside of the stand so the entire opening of the stand is made available.

Canopy

The two primary concerns in designing the stand were adjustable heights for the MH lamps and easy access to the tank from all sides. I decided on a frame constructed of 1x2 pine strips with a center support along the middle of the canopy. The 'doors of the canopy are trimmed pieces of plywood on the sides and front of the tank hinged from the top of plywood.

The lamps and reflectors are supported by another 1x2 pine wood frame. The frames are supported by small 1x2 pieces attached at 2" vertical intervals to allow lowering of the frame/lamps as the bulbs age. Unfortunately I didn't think very well about mounting PC Actinics and had to depend on switching over to using parallel reflectors that have mounting strips attached to the reflector to install PC bulbs.

DWFMAS.org DIY Forum: 75g Canopy Build Log (was 75 gal stand)