[widmer]

Originally Posted by woodnaquanut

One of the valuable parts of the DIY section is the experienced/pros suggesting that the user might be in over his/her head. There are times when we should hold 'em and times when we should fold 'em.

This is very sage advice, that sometimes we should go for it and other times we should hire a professional. However, it should be said that I do often find that my barometer for when to DIY is less conservative than some.

Originally Posted by Khemul

Theoretically, everything could be fine. Theoretically a meteor could smash through the ceiling and destroy the tank, making all the work for nothing. Hard to predict these things. Hence why some people like to take a hard stance when it comes to caution.

I completely agree here as well. Specific to this project, I still fail to see how using a diamond blade (which was made to cut glass to begin with...) to very slowly, carefully, and purposefully cut a slot and then proceed sand it out to finish the edge work, using the time and care that only a hobbyist working on his or her pet project would, carries any greater risk than using a glass hole cutter.

Originally Posted by Willistein

I guess I thought this was the DIY section...
To the OP: any progress on a plan for this?

That being said, I have decided to in fact engineer a sump into my new build. This negates part of the benefit of having an overflow slot, because I now will be placing the ATS in the sump. So I've canceled the slot overflow idea since I'll be drilling holes anyway to run lines to the sump. I had previously wanted an overflow slot because I was planning to have an ATS panel right up against the back panel of the aquarium in a sort of HOB-sump, and a slot in the back of glass would have been a really elegant way to feed water directly to the ATS panel.

But my sump plans are now almost equally outlandish; I just placed the order for the glass today, the sump itself will have the bizarre dimensions of 9.5" long x 8" wide x 18" tall. I will put up a build thread when the whole thing is up and running.