My Tank Just Shattered! Need Help.

I was drilling the back of my 29 gallon tank to put on my glass holes overflow box and "pop" the whole back shattered. My LFS sells aqueon and all-glass brands. Are these tempered glass. I need to go get a new tank but do not want this to happen again. Thanks.

 

I dont believe they are. My 20 gallon is an aquaeon and I drilled that one.
What bit are you using? How hard were you pushing? Lubrication?

 

What type of coolant and guide were you using when drilling? The glass on a 29 is fairly thin. I suspect it overheated. It's not tempered.

 

I was using the bit that came with the overflow from gl*******s.com. They call it a diamond coated hole saw. I had the template on and it was full of water, wasn't pushing hard at all just using the weight of the drill. Had a nice ring cut in it so I was going to remove the template. As soon as I touched the duct tape the whole back side popped.

 

You would actually know if it was tempered. Instead of a bunch of small sharp pieces of glass, you would have a million tiny, less sharp, pieces of glass.

 

Yeah, not tempered if you even got a hole started. It would shatter as soon as you started drilling.
I suspect going too fast, pushing too hard, or it overheating.

 

Slightly off topic but what is tempered glass? When I bought my tank it said tempered glass, do not drill

 

Tempering is a process of super heating the glass to give it extra strength. Unfortunately, it also makes it brittle.

 

Ohh ok

 

Yeh, it shattered into a billion tiny pieces but stayed together until I threw it into the trash can. I'm going to buy another one right now...and and some beer too, maybe that was the whole problem to begin with, no beer involved.