Increasing hole size in glass?!?

[SHARKSRME]

Have any of you ever increased the size of the holes in your overflows? I would like to have largers ones so I can really crank up the turnover rate in my aquarium to 20x per hour. Thats a no can do at this point in time. I cannot tear down my tank to do this as it is too large and it would be way too much work. I am scared to use a dremel or such to increase the size because of possibly making an error, possibly getting glass bits in water and others too. I also think it would take a lot of grinding and time to make the holes bigger with a dremel since the glass is fairly thick (240 gallon tank). Any ideas or suggestions? BTW I would like to stay away from adding a hot siphon box. Thanks again!

[dragon_slayer]

I'm not sure I'd try it with a full tank but I've up sized a few holes with regular diamond hole saws, works just the same as if drilling a new hole in solid glass. it would work as long as you kept it wet, but it does make a bit of a mess. again i don't recommend it on a full tank.

kc

[rsman]

add a HOT box!!!

hehe

i agree with kc

its doable you can drain the tank a bit, and get in there with a cordless drill and a diamond hole saw, take your time, and if you think its going to slow, slow down!!!

[SHARKSRME]

Draining the tank to half or so would be no big deal. I just dont think i could find a drill to fit down into my overflow box. I also cant figure out how to drill from below and still keep it wet. I have drilled holes in a tank before with a drill press. I think it would be extremely difficult to do by hand. Maybe my best bet is to do the whole dremel or a drill bit with a diamond grinder. I could cover up my sump, and use a wetdry vac the whole time to suck up glass as I go. Then I could pour a ton of water through my overflow box and have it drain into some buckets. Then clean out the overflow again for extra safety. If I marked the location of how much I need to grind....damn thats a lot of glass. HAHA maybe a hot box is best. Oh no!

[dragon_slayer]

drilling by hand is not to difficult, and the thicker the glass the easier it is to do. I've drilled in the up position like you'd need to do from the bottom of the tank with it setup and used a spray bottle and a helper to keep it wet. it's just gonna take allot of time and patients if you go this route.

kc

[Frick-n-Frags]

Yeah, go slow. I've drilled tanks with carbide hole saws, which takes even longer than a diamond bit, I just took my time (~20 min for a hole through like 3/8")

Also, glass is inert so glass powder won't cause any serious problems if some gets into the water.

[Ehydo]

Try A Dremel tool. You can increase the size and do it whil the tank has water in it.