tempered glass

[moik]

Hello, my wife was out and about the other day and she bought me 55 gal tank.As she got it home, I took a look at it . There is a sticker on the bottom stating that all panels are tempered glass. I called around trying to find one that was not all tempered ,so I can drill the back for an overflow. Could not find one.Is there something about a 55 gal tank that they only make it in all tempered glass?

[Graham]

hi, Call the manufacturer...normally only the bottom is tempered.

Graham

[geekgeek]

Hi,

I had a 55G tempered glass before. And all the sides are tempered. I think the thickness is like 6mm. for all the pieces. They have to use tempered glass for 55G. It makes them lighter and more economical to make. To make a 55G with non tempered, it would weight alot more and cost alot more to transport. And at the dirty cheap prices tanks are these days. Tempered they are. I haven't seen any non-tempered ones yet unless they are the older 55G tanks.

In short, you can not drill them. Sorry for the bad news.

[moik]

Thanks for the replies. I have some very good LFS around me. They all said the same thing. I could not pass up this deal. Brand new tank and 2 tank covers with lights for $100.00. This was a sale price. I was planning on drilling all my tanks for a water change system , with the bulkheads down low like Kenny(kennys discus) has on his tanks.My other 14 tanks can be drilled, but I do not want to go through all the hassle of doing this and still have one tank being left out.Just a little peeve of mine.I am just a little undecided on what to with this tank now.May have to rethink the tank size, so I can drill it. Again I thank you for expertise.

[fishmama]

This link may help. I too recently purchased a 55 gal, to find out it cannot be drilled.
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...ndrilled+drain

[Jason]

That sucks, I havent seen to many tanks all-tempered, what make is it?

Might not be what you want to do, but there is plenty of good overflow/siphon designs out there as an option.

[moik]

Perfecto, for some weird reason most if not all LFS in my area stock these. All Glass Aquariums are not that common, but small sizes only.

[phidelt85]

At least you found the stamp on yours. I found out the hard way that 55s were tempered. I started to drill on it and "bayoooom" thousands of pieces of glass everywhere. I replaced it with a new untempered sheet; well, here's the end result of that undertaking:

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=62144