Disaster with a drilled thin glass wall tank

[krish]

Well,

You live and learn and in the hopes that someone will not

repeat my mistake, here i go with my post.

I drilled a 45G hex tank. One hole was drilled to fit a bulkhead

for the drain. The plan was to build an external durso.

The plan was to place a sump inside the stand.

 

All went well. The drilling, putting together the durso, water

test for 2 days with the tank running in the garage.

 

Things went wrong when i emptied the tank.

 

Issue:

-----

The external durso was build out of rigid 1" PVC. It then

makes a 90degree and enters the stand thru a hole

drilled in the back of the stand.

The PVC then had a 90degree elbow right above the middle

of the sump, to direct the water into the sump.

The plan was to later stick in a piece of PVC so that the

sound of the falling water will be dampened.

 

What happened?

----------------

In order to get the  sump out, i tried to slowly drag it. Due

to the tight location of the stand, i never noticed that the

90deg elbow was below the sump top frame level. This

was hindering the sump from sliding out.  I then remove the

elbow and take the sump out.

 

A little later, i notice that horizontal line on the glass,

along the bulkhead extending to the edge of the glass. I

realized the damage. It was a crack due to that one single

pull. The bulkhead was quite tight and it was unforgiving of

my pull.

 

I could have avoided this by

a) using flex pvc in this case.

b) using a piece of wood to limit the movement of the

PVC and hence reduce the stress on the bulkhead.

 

Resolution:

----------

I put some duct tape on the glass, shattered it. Removed

the fragments and discarded all but a small sample. I then

went to a local glass store, got a piece of clear glass with

polished edges. After some siliconing and curing for over

a day, the tank now holds water , has been drilled again

and is ready for deployment.

 

This time, i did some minor carpentary work on the stand

to limit the stress on the bulkhead in case i lose my mind

and repeat the mistake again.

The durso already had a true union to disconnect the drain

in case i need to move the tank around or for maintenance

etc.

 

Just thought that i will share this experience, so that folks

drilling and setting up tanks with thinner glass will be

cautious about the fact and not repeat my mistake.

 

thanks

krish

[chideloh]

Sorry about the mishap, krish. Thanks for sharing. We all need to be careful..... I know I do.