Drilling Aqueon Aquaria

[jandlms]

I’m planning out a new system in the retirement house my wife and I are building. A fish room was included in the plans behind the spot I want the display tank. I have always preferred large sumps in my systems with multiple types of filtration.
as I have not been able to locate a suitable six foot long (or longer) thick walled plastic container I have decided to try two 55 gallon or two 75 gallon glass tanks connected by a bulkhead or two.
My questions are :
1. Can the ends of Aqueon aquaria (Petco specials) be drilled for bulkhead installation? Ideally I would like two pipes connecting the two tanks and one at an end for an external return pump.
2. Any better options for a fairly large sump(s) in sequence that will be compartmentalizations into chambers for a skimmer, chemical filtration, lit refugium, cryptic refugium, and a return.
As always any thoughts and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[KorlL]

I’ve used a old aio 90 gallon acrylic tank as a sump before. I added some baffles and used the filtration compartment as my ato reservoir

 

[KorlL]

As long as the glass aquarium isn’t tempered, you can drill them to plumb them together. If your buying new, it should have a label or something saying it’s tempered

 

[rwreef]

I've had success drilling every Aqueon aquarium I've bought from Petco. The sides, not the bottom

 

[jandlms]

What about two holes in one end of each to hook them in sequence? I like redundancy.

 

[TDEcoral]

From what I found when I bought a 75g from petco, in the last couple years or so Aqueon has been using whatever glass is on hand to build their standard tanks. In the past, it was pretty safe to assume that only the bottom pane would ever be tempered, but now it sounds like it could be any of them. The only way to be sure is to test each pane at the store before buying the tank. On the 75g that I bought, the back pane was tempered and I needed to drill it. I ended up disassembling the tank, buying a non-tempered pane of glass from a local glass shop, reassembling the tank, then I drilled my overflow holes.