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Just to close the loop on this, I ran the test. I had already bought a 40B and a 75 from Petco on sale. The "old" Aqueon specs for these said no tempered on the 40B and only the bottom pane on the 75. The 75 I bought had the infamous sticker but it also had an engraving on the bottom pane indicating it was tempered. For comparison, I tested the bottom pane of the 40B against the bottom pane of the 75. The 40B showed totally dark while the 75 showed streaks, thus indicating tempered as expected. This gave me my baseline to test the side panes on the 75. I did not bother testing the rest of the 40B since I'm using this for a sump and won't be drilling it anyway.
Conclusion - side panes on the 75 also tested as tempered, so good thing Petco has a 60 day return policy. Bad thing is I now have to get it lugged out of basement and back to the store.
FWIW, I'm going to respond to Aqueon's previous answer (which I posted above) asking why they can't be more definitive in identifying tempered panes on each tank made when they stray from their typical tank specs. Since the tanks I bought already have all kinds of stickers on them, would it be too much trouble to slap a small sticker (say, with the letter "T") to clearly indicate which panes are tempered (if not all), since apparently the aquarium industry doesn't have to abide by the same regulations as the construction industry with regard to clearly identifying tempered glass (I know this, being a recently retired architect).
Anyway, hope this helps others or at least avoids a catastrophe. I'm just thankful I opened this thread by coincidence.
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