kzziboy
New member
I pulled my post from another thread to create this one.
I purchased a 75 gallon Aqueon Aquarium from Petsmart. I KNOW the bottom is tempered but was unclear about the sides. Please use caution if you have this type of aquarium. I spoke to a WORKER IN THEIR FACTORY! He told me MOST of the time the sides are NOT tempered. HOWEVER, they sometimes substitute tempered glass on the sides as well if they run short of the regular glass for the side panels! I realize there is a table that's floating around on here about whether or not certain panels are tempered. That table may not be 100 percent accurate. That's why I needed a definitive answer. My original post is below...
Update on my 75 Gallon Aqueon from Petsmart. IT IS NOT tempered on the sides.
I did some more studying and found out that using a CELL PHONE screen with polarized glasses doesn't always work. Many cell phone screens use TEMPERED GLASS on the front so that messes up the light that the LCD screen gives off. Thereby making your tempered glass test on an aquarium inconclusive.
Instead I used a laptop. Any LCD desktop screen would work as well. I pulled up Microsoft word with a blank document which fills the screen with quite a bit of bright white light. I then used my polarized sunglasses and rotated them until when looking through them the screen went completely black. That showed me that the screen is indeed giving of a polarized light.
I then placed it behind the bottom panel of the aquarium which I KNOW is tempered. I then rotated the sunglasses and could NEVER make the screen go completely black when looking through them. PLUS you could see the lines in the tempered glass which everyone refers to. The lines are not as refined as they are when you look at a car window for example, but they're there.
Then I moved the computer behind the side panels which I questioned whether or not they were tempered. I did the test and BAM! I could tell with NO PROBLEM that the side panels ARE NOT tempered. As I rotated the sunglasses the screen went COMPLETELY black. My reading tells me that tempered glass basically scrambles polarized light. That's why you can't make the screen go completely black when looking through sunglasses with tempered glass in between. If it's REGULAR glass, then you can.
Sorry this is long, but I had to do a lot of searching and comparing videos to get a good description of how to do the test to find out.
I'm sure there's at least one person this will help out when trying to determine whether or not they can safely drill their aquarium.
Now, I know I can. Still a little nervous about it, but what the heck!!
Thanks everyone!
I purchased a 75 gallon Aqueon Aquarium from Petsmart. I KNOW the bottom is tempered but was unclear about the sides. Please use caution if you have this type of aquarium. I spoke to a WORKER IN THEIR FACTORY! He told me MOST of the time the sides are NOT tempered. HOWEVER, they sometimes substitute tempered glass on the sides as well if they run short of the regular glass for the side panels! I realize there is a table that's floating around on here about whether or not certain panels are tempered. That table may not be 100 percent accurate. That's why I needed a definitive answer. My original post is below...
Update on my 75 Gallon Aqueon from Petsmart. IT IS NOT tempered on the sides.
I did some more studying and found out that using a CELL PHONE screen with polarized glasses doesn't always work. Many cell phone screens use TEMPERED GLASS on the front so that messes up the light that the LCD screen gives off. Thereby making your tempered glass test on an aquarium inconclusive.
Instead I used a laptop. Any LCD desktop screen would work as well. I pulled up Microsoft word with a blank document which fills the screen with quite a bit of bright white light. I then used my polarized sunglasses and rotated them until when looking through them the screen went completely black. That showed me that the screen is indeed giving of a polarized light.
I then placed it behind the bottom panel of the aquarium which I KNOW is tempered. I then rotated the sunglasses and could NEVER make the screen go completely black when looking through them. PLUS you could see the lines in the tempered glass which everyone refers to. The lines are not as refined as they are when you look at a car window for example, but they're there.
Then I moved the computer behind the side panels which I questioned whether or not they were tempered. I did the test and BAM! I could tell with NO PROBLEM that the side panels ARE NOT tempered. As I rotated the sunglasses the screen went COMPLETELY black. My reading tells me that tempered glass basically scrambles polarized light. That's why you can't make the screen go completely black when looking through sunglasses with tempered glass in between. If it's REGULAR glass, then you can.
Sorry this is long, but I had to do a lot of searching and comparing videos to get a good description of how to do the test to find out.
I'm sure there's at least one person this will help out when trying to determine whether or not they can safely drill their aquarium.
Now, I know I can. Still a little nervous about it, but what the heck!!
Thanks everyone!
