Stand prep... and paint.

The aquarium hobby has matured a lot over the last couple of decades but one thing that remained the same are stand colors. I feel like everywhere I look I see the same black, cherry and maple choices. Occasionally there's some white cabinets but let's face it, that's not a good choice. Gray isn't particularly pleasing either as it looks quite dull.

The stand I bought from the local reefer looked great, but it did not match any of my furniture that currently sits in the dining room; where the tank will be. My first thought was maybe just spray painting the stand black seeing how the tank itself will most likely be black and that would have made things extremely easy. Upon further deliberation, I decided to try to match the color to my current dining set. Now dark dark brown is not a color you see often on aquarium furniture, infact, I don't recall ever seeing one. It is pretty common for modern furniture though. Go figure. Maybe All Glass will catch on soon.


To get the stand ready to be repainted, I first went and bought a powered sander so I can strip off all the old paint and the wear and tear on the wood. What do you call the spots that turn black on the wood from just being exposed to elements? Well, whatever it is, it's gone now. As you can see in the pic, the sander did a great job of getting the wood pieces ready for painting. A "live-and-learn" note for you guys; try to do this outside. I sanded this stand in my garage and now there's a fine dusting of paint and wood particles all over everything in my garage. It kinda looks like pollen but Spring is not quite here yet.


After a couple of days of sanding, cleaning the garage and trying to minimize the dust particles in the general area before I paint, I finally sweeped enough to my satisfaction and wiped the stand down to make sure all particles of dust were gone. After it was dry, I started my first coat of the stain on the stand. This particular stain is rather thin (very liquidy) but it also made it very easy to work with.


Unfortunately, the last few days in Atlanta have been raining so right now, 24 hours later, I am still waiting for the first coat to dry so I can do a second coat. I guess cold and wet weather is not so great for painting or paint drying... ah well, when this whole thing is finished, it should look great.

On another note, I just realized that all larger tanks have their mega overflows on the left. I wonder if spacing will be an issue with getting the plumbing down with all those power plugs there.