Turning Ikea Cabinet into a viable Aquarium Stand

I've been planning on setting up a 2 feet aquarium in our living room and due to budget constraints, I cannot afford to buy the top-of-the-line ADA cabinets such as this one:

Fortunately, there are nice looking cabinets from Ikea that are very affordable and fits a 60x30x36cm tank perfectly such as Stuva. However, We all know that Ikea is not the most durable furniture brands out there and certainly not reliable to hold an aquarium tank that can weight more than 100 kilograms!

However, we can always reinforce a cabinet to make strong enough to hold such weight such as what I did with the Stuva. As shown below, using 1x2 inch solid wood planks (I used 30 feet of "Kapok" beams) which costs 6 SGD for every 10 feet here in Singapore.

The cabinet and its legs cost about 35 SGD while the solid wood planks, metal braces, and screws are around 55 SGD. I can now sit or even stand on it without feeling any wiggle at all. I happen to have an Ikea glass door from our old cabinets and it fits this cabinet perfectly.

A new door (Besta) of this size costs around 20 SGD.

Here is a closer look at the interior:

 

Used a metal bracket from an old Ikea cabinet to secure into the wall

Cute Ikea legs and color caps can be replaced

Fit the vertical beams to make room for the door hinge

So there you have it! This cabinet is now worthy of an ADA 60-P tank!