Today's video I got a drill
For aquariums that are filled with water and up and running for at the water change system
we'll be using a diamond coated hole saw and
Some one-inch bulkheads, but like I said, they're filled with water and actually up and running as sumps right now
I need to drill holes. Probably right around here just one-inch hole all the way down in each tank
Now I could drain these take them out, etc. Etc. But I've done this so many times
however, usually when you drill an aquarium, you're usually
Drilling it
Facedown so you can actually apply water to the hole you're drilling
So the hole saw doesn't get too hot and you prolong the life of this
So this is going to be pretty interesting one of the first things you need to do when drilling an aquarium, though
We want to make sure that it's not going to burst into tiny little pieces and if you don't know what I mean
Tempered glass if you try to drill it, it's going to shatter
So we need to make sure the tanks are not tempered before we touch them with the drill
So you only really need two things one. You're gonna need a phone screen or a
Laptop screen something along those lines that can display a white screen something like this
This is just going to help reflect light now
You can do this without a phone, but it's not nearly as accurate. Then you need some polarized glasses
Now if you don't have polarized sunglasses, you can use those 3d glasses that you'll get at a movie theater
In fact originally when I showed you how to do this years ago we used
Glasses from a 3d movie theater cheap you get them for free when you go to the movies
So you need the driller tank go watch a 3d movie and keep the glasses before we actually get started though
We need to create some control subjects one. We need to test this on a piece of glass that we know for sure is not
Tempered then we need to test it on a piece of glass that we know for sure
Is tempered just so weakens to actually see the differences before we go trying this for the first time on the aquarium?
This is an old door
Part of my house. I know that this piece of glass is definitely not tempered Jurek probably isn't find it
Let me show you what a piece of tempered glass looks like before we look at one. That's so you can see the difference
so I know for sure that my driver's side door is tempered glass and in fact yours will be too if it's
Been made with them. I don't know the past 10-15 years. So knowing that this is tempered
I'm gonna know exactly what to look for
So if we take a look at the corners here, this is kind of the best area to do this in
But if we put the polarized glasses in front of the lens here
Watch what's gonna happen?
You don't really see much. Do you it all just kind of looks the same just maybe a little more
Sun shaded
But what if we put the foam behind it with a white screen and put the glasses on you see what just happened there?
Let me get even closer look take the phone away. Look at the corner top corners. See that the rainbow effect
Shades on a little bit closer even better. You see that now
Okay, so maybe you don't have a car window or maybe your tank doesn't have an edge like this
This is one way to see is the corners or bevels tempered glass is always really smooth as well
But if you go near the edges, you'll see that rainbow effect and I'll explain why in a moment
But if you're just looking through some basic tempered glass watch this
Which what we're looking for here you see the lines see the lines on the phone
It's not the phone is actually the glass so I can follow one. It's everywhere you
See that isn't that crazy Oh
And they disappear try this again with a little bit more light see the lines on the phone
That is due to the manufacturing process
These are the rollers that actually went over the glass and you can see the lines there right now
The reason this is working you see tempered glass
scrambles
polarized light so if we're putting a light through here and
Polarize it it's going to look scrambled and we're going to get those imperfections in the glass
Regular plate glass doesn't do that. So we should try this and make sure now again, I know this is not
Tempered because I already tested it on an own piece of tempered glass. We'll try it on this and we'll see the difference
This is what we want to put our aquariums to look like phone behind it and put your glasses on
Now ideally you would just wear this normally but look none of those wines are in it
No, rainbow effect nothing, but that's an old door. Most of them are tempers these days
so if you don't know for sure if you have a
Fridge with glass shelves. Those are tempered
Your microwave door is tempered
Usually the plate inside of it is tempered but this is more modern door. Probably only maybe 5-10 years old
So again white screen behind it try the tempered glass effect
See the line right there right in the middle of the phone bam bam. It's all over the place with this one
It's insane, isn't it? Now? Some will say turning this phone or the glasses sideways?
It'll give you more dramatic effect something to do with the angle of the Glory's glasses. We see that take them off
That's gonna darken this a little bit. So, you know, it's no camera trick or whatever doing
Those tests are entirely important and a must you must do it
even if you've done it before and you know what to look for I
Suggest you still test because maybe you forget what it looks like or it's kind of different etc
make sure so now that I know for sure I
can go ahead and
drill
Those tanks. I need a water source, though
So I got a little bottle, but I can score water out onto the drill as needed now
I do not suggest you drill your tanks like this. I know a lot of people are gonna say
Oh Joey, you recommend not doing it. But you do it yourself. That's because I have the experience and doing this hundreds of times
To see what I suggest you do is you actually turn your aquarium up on its side so you can drill down into the hole
because you're gonna want to use the pressure of
Or the weight of the drill to actually drill the hole. This way is going to be a lot more tricky
I'm not going to be able to use the weight of the drill. I'm gonna have to do it based on experience
I'm also not going to use any template like I've shown you before that makes drilling holes so much easier
but if you got to do it, it's still possible and I'm gonna show you how I
plan to drill six inches below the lip
So what I'm going to do here is measures six inches down over here
This is where I want my water level to be
It's about about the six inch mark now the placement of the bulkhead
We don't want to put it right in the middle of the line or right below it or right above it
This is a an emergency overflow or a drain for when we're doing the water changes. We want to put it directly
above
The line that means that the water will stop flowing at this line, and that means it's at the bottom
entrance of this bulkhead
I'm also putting it over to this corner because eventually we're gonna turn these into fish tanks and
I'll plumb them and I'd rather have the bulkhead over to the side where I would typically plumb as opposed to in the middle or
Just out wherever so all of them will be over to the sides here. So I'm six inches down and
You want to give yourself at least a half inch between the
Flange of the bulkhead and the lip here look so we see we marked here. This is gonna be six inches down
Then of course how far over are we gonna want to be? Probably by at least a quarter inch half inch
this is just going to give the flange some space and being able to tighten that bolt but
That should be perfect right about there
trick I do is I take the the
nut off of the actual vault head here and I figure out where I'm gonna want it placed the inside of this is
actually the same dimensions as the
The neck and
The outside is the same as the top flange
so I'm killing two birds with one stone one eye can see how much distance I'm giving myself over here plus two I can actually
See where the bottom of that is gonna be. So I'm thinking right around here
Is where I'll want it
Like that. All right
Mm-hmm, so I know exactly where I want to drill now
All I've got to do
Is I'm gonna have to continue to wet the bit here with a little bit of water. Maybe even though I made no difference
But we want to start at an angle
Watch just like this
Now once we have this groove in here that you can see we're going to slowly lower the bit
This is dangerous for me stopping and going for you guys to see this button. Maybe I'll explain it in a minute
There you have it it's not a bad little hole now believe it or not
This is far safer than it looks once you start getting the groove in there
there's no real worry about the tank cracking or shattering for simple reasons and that is because
Circular shapes don't have any specific stress points if we were cutting a square in there
definitely all the corners is where it's going to
See the stress areas and you can take a piece of sandpaper and rough this up
So it's a lot softer if you want to but I live on the edge you need to cut myself every once in a while
to make it look like a fish when installing a bulkhead you want the
Gasket on the inside of the aquarium. Also, I got that
Diamond coated hole saw it sounds way fancier than it is. You get them on eBay for a couple bucks
Amazon, wherever you want really affordable. That's it now
I can put a elbow in here to drain into a drain or whatever doing next then with these tiny little glass things
I like to make little
Pendants for chains on Etsy if you want to follow me. I'm just kidding
Now I got to repeat the process three more times
So repeating the step three more times to just be repeating myself more and more
I'm gonna go ahead and do that and then I got to move on to some other plumbing issues
But I hope that you guys enjoyed today's video. I figured since I did this many many years ago
I
Circled back to it and show you guys again for those that haven't seen that type of information and she's showing you how to drill
A tank this is a very crude manner. I don't suggest you do it like this
And once again, I know Bueller to say why are you showing how to do it if you don't do it yourself?
I hate that you do that
Again, it's just a difference of experience
I've done this many many many many many times and I'm just showing you how I do it based on that experience
However, I've got a really good video that I made years ago that uses a template and the glass and everything's positioned properly
Make sure you watch that. If you haven't already I'll leave a link in the description below kind of cringy
But it's good information. I'll see you guys in the next video