Drilling tanks with tempered bottom

[josephatmbimortgage]

I heard people doing it before without having problems. Who here has tried it and what happened? Just curious bc I'm thinking of drilling my 29 gallon and making it into a nano tank. If possible, any suggestions?

-Joseph Le

[LoneStar]

I think the odds are that the glass will break(into many little pieces :) ). It is worth trying out if you don't care what the outcome may be. Plus if its a standard 29g, you can always replace it fairly cheap....

[josephatmbimortgage]

Ohh okay, any one esle have tried or know someone that tried.

[Bill S]

I've heard that success on a tempered piece of glass, is about 1 in 3 tries...

[erikharrison]

I was asking Louis about that before, he said he would never do after hearing some horror stories of it popping and I would presume getting into someones eyes.

[caferacermike]

The glaziers I know said to never do this. Even if you are successful at not destroying the tank you jeopardize the integrity of the glass. I had piece of glass once that a friend wanted for a project. I took it to him and he has a lot of glass cutting gear around. After making about 6 scores and not getting it to snap he got out the dremel tool and a diamond cutting wheel. 10 minutes later he had cut a 24" piece of glass in half. As he congratulated himself on the task, he laid the glass on the table. Almost as quick as it touched the table it exploded into tiny pieces. It was only then that we realized it was tempered. Are the sides tempered? Most people that drill their own tanks do the sides just to be safe. You could do a calfo style hole at the top of you could drill it near the bottom and use a 90' elbow to point a durso tube to the top of the tank.

[captexas]

I've had luck drilling a tank with a tempered bottom. Of course I drilled through the back of the tank! :-)