Can one drill thin glass?

[Anemone]

Dumb question perhaps, but I was thinking about drilling around a 1 inch diameter hole in a partition in my sump and wondering if there's some minimum thickness needed for drilling or if the glass might shatter if it's too thin (1/8 inch I think). Would drill first before installing in the sump.

Thanks for any advice!

[WheresTheReef]

I've drilled through 1/8" thick glass. I put grey tape on the underside where the hole was drilled to give it extra stability, but probably not needed. Just don't push on the drill or the glass will break.

[Anemone]

Excellent, thanks!

[Jon Lazar]

Be careful once you have your bulkhead and plumbing installed.  The plumbing can create a large moment arm, and break the relatively thin glass.

[Anemone]

Good point, thanks!

I'm trying to create a recirculation loop in my sump like in the picture below (hope the Photo bucket link works). Two perforated horizontal pipes run through a coral substrate and a pump draws flow from one of the lower pipes and out through the upper one. CO2 injection lets you run this as an in tank calcium reactor. So there will be a substrate in the middle chamber. Not sure whether 1/8 glass will be strong enough.

There may be another way to do this with less glass drilling.

[AlanM]

Looks like an interesting design, but, in addition to the 1/8" glass being very fragile, be careful that you don't build something that can never disassemble and clean.  All tanks are not the same, but in a surprisingly short amount of time my stuff gets covered with a weird array of sponges and tube worms that would be really difficult to get out of that plumbing maze shown in your post.

[Anemone]

That is a good point Alan. How about using screw on connectors and caps? Then I can shove some kind of pipe cleaner through the horizontal pieces from time to time. May want to widen one of the chambers so I can get an arm in there to get the pipe cleaner in.

[Anemone]

An alternative could be to replace the lower drain with a gap under the left baffle and have a layer of coarse rock on the bottom of the middle chamber for even drainage and to contain the calcium substrate. The return could go over the baffle instead of through it. Probably easier to maintain, eh?

Will my 1/8 inch thick baffles crack when I fill the middle chamber with what is basically crushed coral?

[Jon Lazar]

Will my 1/8 inch thick baffles crack when I fill the middle chamber with what is basically crushed coral?

 

I think your glass will be fine unless you go caveman and are deliberately reckless.

 

Are you doing the whole DyMiCo filtration route?  I had never heard of it until I saw this post and the atypical sump design.  So I had to dig around and found DyMiCo.

[Anemone]

I think your glass will be fine unless you go caveman and are deliberately reckless.

 

So, even odds then.

Are you doing the whole DyMiCo filtration route? I had never heard of it until I saw this post and the atypical sump design. So I had to dig around and found DyMiCo.

Trying to DIY my own version inspired by them. Some things are secret, like the mystery carbon source they dose with. We know that the ORP set point is -200 and target pH in the reactor is 7. The idea of dosing carbon without skimming appeals to me (would take some time to explain, maybe if I get around to starting a build thread).

Alan raises a good point about clogging tubes, especially with such slow flow. I wonder how they deal with that in the commercial Dymico system.