“Drilling a tank is so easy...”
 

I have heard this so many times. I am a DIY kind of a guy. So for my 3 year old son’s birthday, we were going to start a new tank for him. I have done reef tanks before. I bought an Aqueon 75 gallon from Perco during their sale. I did the research and watched the videos on how to drill a tank. The tank appears to have passed the polarize test but it was difficult. I was drilling the back part of the tank. The bottom said it was tempered. Everything that I read said the Aqueon was only tempered on the bottom. I went slow, and about half way through the first hole it happened. Scared the heck out of me and shattered in a million pieces. A minute later, my wife brought our son out and he looked puzzled. He looked at the pile of glass and asked “Where did my fish tank go”? Needless to say, I am heart broken. I give up.

Awww. That sucks. Though, I am confident the little guy will get a fish tank still. I hate it when I am doing stuff for the kids and flub it. Just try again dad, you'll get it. Practice on the intact panels of glass first!

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It was tempered.... oops...

I'm confused, you got halfway through a piece of tempered glass before it failed? Should fail as soon as you break through the tension on the surface I thought.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvRgklsm6so


Nope. You can get a start

Sorry for your luck! Aqueon is (in)famous for mixing and matching panels on their tanks. You MUST check the panel you intend to drill regardless of what a sticker or their website might say. If there is any doubt at all that it might be tempered, don't drill. It's Aqueon, so there is a good chance the opposite side is OK.

In the end, all panels were tempered including the bottom panel.

I would try taking it back -- It was made wrong according to the manufacturers sticker.

did you find out by practice drilling on the remaining panels?

That's the problem I was facing. I went to Petco, and did the polarization trick with 2 sets of glasses (RayBan and Coasta's) and I couldn't tell any difference from the bottom or the sides. I found out that Aqueon does change their panels from time to time.

Luckily, I went to PetSmart and they said they would price match with a tank I could tell was tempered only on the bottom.

Drilling the tank is easy. Testing to determine if its tempered isn't quite as easy. You need an older laptop with LCD screen, and a true polarized lens. Other screen types might not work so well, and I wouldn't trust cheap $5 sunglasses. You do need to know what to look for. Tempered glass used on aquariums has strain patterns that look like lines. Other tempered glass can look like cloudy patches. Different cooling equipment, different glass material, and procedures creates different marks or patterns on the glass. But, non-tempered will not have any marks or patterns.

I did and all panels shattered the same.

I recently bought a 75 from petco and used polarized sunglasses and my laptop to determine all panels are tempered after I got it home so I did not drill it.
I called Aqueon and they guy I spoke to said they had a shortage of non-tempered glass and petco had ordered so many aquariums they made a bunch with all tempered panels.
No way to know without testing with the polarized glasses and a laptop.
I even brought my laptop and glasses to two other stores hoping to find one that had one side not tempered. No luck. All the 40 breeders were not tempered on the sides though.

When you say it was difficult to pass the polarize test what do you mean?

Mine had just a few light lines show through the glasses, nothing major, but enough to tell it was tempered.
The 40 breeders and even a 15 gallon I had already let the glasses completely black out when I tested them.
Anything other than complete blackness when the glasses are rotated and I would think the panel is tempered and would not risk drilling it.

question.
are tanks with holes on bottom (most rimless tanks) mean the bottom glass is not tempered?

In most cases, I believe the holes are drilled in the bottom panel, then the glass is tempered.

I take it you cannot add a new hole after tempering. how about enlarging an existing hole?

Right. I don't think it can be reworked in any way. You might not even be able to sand or grind it.

Tempered glass is effectively under pressure inside. It is pushing against its outermost layers.

If you start to grind away or weaken the outermost layers, it will break and the entire inner layer will shatter.

It is best not to mess with tempered glass.

If you need or want tempered glass with holes, then yes - it is drilled first, then tempered.

However, just to clarify, I would not say that most/many/any tanks with holes in the bottom have tempered bottoms. The presence of holes does not indicate the glass is or is not tempered, and certainly, lots of rimless tanks are made with (or without) holes that do not have any tempered glass in them at all.

To the OP - you got partially into a piece of tempered glass before it exploded. Congrats. You have a great hand at drilling. As everyone indicated, most of the time, it fractures almost immediately. It takes a good touch to make it halfway through. Take this as a good sign!

My initial test was not going completely dark but no lines that I could see. Everything I saw said that it would go completely dark when doing the test.

Thanks for the kind words. As an update, I was able to find another 75 gallon tank, finally, after the 5th Petco! This one was definatley not tempered on the sides. I drilled my hole this morning. I was going for 2 holes but I am not going to temp fate (I whimped out on the second hole). :lmao:

You did good dad.

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I don't mean to sound preachy or give unsolicited advice, but the fact that your son got to watch you hit a roadblock but push through and succeed anyways will be more meaningful than if everything always went smoothly through the whole project. Glad you went ahead.

The polarization test is an art, not a science. Not all tempered glass reacts the same, it really depends on exactly how the glass is tempered and cooled afterwards. Another thing to keep in mind is glass thickness - often, tanks with tempered glass will have thinner glass than their non-tempered counterparts of the same size. The whole point of tempering is to reduce the cost by allowing the use of thinner glass.

You are absolutely right. I didn’t think about this, but so true! In the end, the drilling of the tank WAS easy if you go slow AND if you have a non-tempered tank!

It's BS, false advertising and negligent frankly. I called them a year ago and they said that only the bottom of their 75's were tempered