Tank Cupboard Irritasions and Nice things

Hi All

So I am busy planning a DIY Tank stand\Cupboard, it will be a stainless steel stand covered with wood, just wanted to know what everyone has experienced with cupboards and what is day to day irritations and what things makes life easier.

Still busy learning sketch up to make it all look like i want it and put the model on here, but so far the only idea I have had is to make the back bottom a bit longer so that I can drill holes in it for pipes and wires to make management of it al la bit easier neater and I want to include rails inside the cupboard that would allow me to cable tie everything to, any other feedback would be awesome.

I have been thinking of also doing a wooden background built into the cupboard

 

Yes indeed I am planning on hiding the filter and everything inside the cupboard, but because its a 2 ft its limited, maybe i can do a stand on top and drawer at the bottom... so far this is what I have, the bottom is left open because my robotic vacuum goes there and then its also hidden away. At the back I left a bit of Extra wood to drill holed for pipes for canister filter and I want to put extra wood bars in that I can use for cable management and secure all the plugs on to and eventually put a C02 bottle in at the back as well.

Dimensions for stand is 900(H)x 310(W)x 610(L) and then wooden cabinet goes over it with wood being a bit taller on sides to hide glass bottom\silicone, still need to add doors\drawers not that I got more thinking to do

Front:



Back:

 

Enough pugs and space for timers - I always struggle with wiring!!

 

Build a small step with leftover wood so that you can reach into the tank. 90cm is high for a stand

 

Cable management.... Always struggle with either to long cables or to short.
Another thing that I have done was install led strip lights so I can see what I am doing.

Sent from my vivo 2006 using Tapatalk

 

One of my current bugbears is very short power cables that don't reach to my multiplugs. I'm not sure what a decent solution is though if you don't want to cut the plug off and extend the cable.

(I was very pleasantly surprised how long the cable on my new Seachem Tidal 55 is.)

 

Agreed, cables are always the biggest issues, either too long or short, and the 2 pin plugs you cant cut off due to warranties and how they need a few wiggles to start working, i had a filter and 2 heaters give me plenty of issues a few weeks ago, so far the yellow in the below drawing is the idea for cable management with 4 extra of each to be cut, and then i can drill holes and cable tie everything to them and add more if needed or get a wire basket even, and also thinking of making top shelf removable as it splits the doors in to 2 x 30cm holes which about the same height as my oase filter