Contract the safety requirements for your DIY project starts taking into account using a tempered glass aquarium calculator to ensure your tank can retain the weight of the water without shattering. Many people believe anything glass is the thesame, but when it comes to holding large volumes of water, the thickness and the tempering process thing immensely. If you are building a custom tank, you cannot helpfully guess the glass thickness. A incorrect calculation risks a catastrophic basement flood or, worse, hurt to your fish.

Glass is generally estranged into two categories: annealed and tempered. Standard annealed glass is what you locate in most windows. It breaks into large, sharp shards. Tempered glass, however, is heat-treated to be several period stronger. Considering it eventually breaks, it shatters into small, pebble-like pieces.

In aquarium construction, you rarely use tempered glass for the sides of the tank. This is because tempered glass cannot be drilled. If you attempt to drill a hole for plumbing in a tempered panel, the entire sheet will explode. Most DIY builders use thick, annealed dish glass for the sides and bottom, and they detachment tempered glass unaccompanied for specific applications where they are positive no drilling will be required.