I'm looking at welding up a frame in a couple months for a 300 gallon and was wondering if anyone had made a frame out of stainless. I'm about 5 miles from a metal depot and they quoted me $630 for 60 feet of stainless 11 gauge 1.25 square bar stock and $270 for mild steel. Thing is, two powdercoat places quoted me in the $280 range. I could probably use marine paint or some other type of primer (does anyone have recommendations?) but I feel like it might be worth it to make it out of stainless. I welded up a stainless light stand a couple years ago and it has zero signs of corrosion.
Second question, has anyone looked at mounting the frame on wheels? I have my eye on
some casters rated to 2200 lbs. I'm setting my stand in a book case and would like it if the whole stand could slide out for easy maintenance. I figure 6 of them should support a 300 gallon aquarium plus water and a 80 gallon sump. That's about 3500 lbs filled with rock and equipment? It'll be on a concrete slab so I'm not worried about moving weight on the foundation.