I was planning to buy a used 150 gallon fish tank off of craigslist this weekend. I was trying to think of ways to save space in my apartment (I already have a 125g and a 40g coffee table tank in one room and a 75g that I will be replacing with this one)and also possibly save money by not buying a stand. I was thinking about making the tank a TV stand aquarium. I was thinking about putting the tank on the floor and placing a table top of some kind on top of it. I still have to iron out the kinks in my plans, but I was thinking about using either a wood top or a plexiglass top and making three sections with the middle being stationary, but the two outside pieces be connected to the middle on hinges so I can easily access the tank. I was also planning to drill holes in the top for oxygen exchange and to run tubes and wires. I was also planning to use LED lights attached to the top for lighting. I am not experienced doing anything like this so I wanted to post it on this forums and see if there are any potential problems that I am over looking? Also, does anyone have any advice to make this more efficient and also make it look more like a piece of furniture than a fish tank on the floor?
Converting an aquarium into an TV stand/table
- Thread starter D Realist
- Start date
You can google this idea and find lots of examples of people using furniture/aquarium combos. Do you have a sketch for your initial idea. Off the bat the main problem I see is having to move the tv to get to the tank unless its high enough to clear the hinged lids. If thats the case you'll have a large gap between the aquaruim lid and tv shelf. You'll want room for water changes and whatnot, but you can probably do a hinged panel that hangs down to cover the gap and folds out of the way when you need access.
This is why I put this on here, I didn't think about the clearance for the TV, lol. How did I miss that. I guess I am going to have to plan for the TV clearance. I have been searching on the net for ideas, but I haven't found any that would work for what I am trying to do.
do you have a pic of the tv and tank at least? Just as a starting point, what would you do differently from this example?
LOL, I was literally just looking at this picture on a web site. I wouldn't have the tank up that high. It looks like a tv is put on top of a tank and stand. I do like how clean the tank and stand look and how it appears that the tv goes down in behind the tank.
LOL this made me laugh. If the idea is to make a stand for.the TV out of an aquarium that's seems logical at first. But then you said jjust to.make space for more aquariums why dont you just buy a wall mount and put it on the wall. Problem solved.
I need to spark up my fish life
I need to spark up my fish life
I will take pics of the TVs, but I am not getting the tank until this weekend. How my apartment is set up it is like I have two living rooms and I have a 47" in the "game room" and a 42" in the living room. The living room is where the 75g I am replacing is located, but I am debating on if I should keep the current TV in that room and put on the tank/stand or if I should put the 47" in there. I guess the 42" will be easier to account for. The are both pretty thin and light so that will not be a problem.
That would be the logical answer, but New Jersey apartments make everything more difficult. My walls don't have typical studs. I thought about mounting them on the walls when I first moved to this apartment despite the horrible experience I had mounting TVs in my first NJ apt(the walls were made of cedar block or concrete). My current apartment may have ceder block covered by weak drywall.