Glasstop exploded last night!

Maybe, but I just don't see how. Yes it was offset, but still quite stable. Plus, I just don't see how that would explain the pieces that I found 6 feet away.

 

the thing is even if it was heated from the light and splashed, I've had this happen twice and the glass just drops strait down, it dosn't go flying 6 feet! You sure a meteorite didn't come through your roof or something

 

Sometimes when tempered glass breaks it doesn't just fall to pieces. It will literally explode throwing pieces every where. So its not unusual that you found pieces 6 feet away. Now why it blew? That is kinda a mystery.

 

Well I have the same biocube asyou do. Here is what I think might have happened, most of the time you must have noticed that there is always bit of salt residue thats left at the back end of the glass due to evaporation and if you dont manually remove that salt from the back end it does not let you sit the glass properly on top of the cube. But as you mentioned that you are sometime away 4-5 days, I think you didnt have time to remove that evaporated salt and glass top didnt have any room to moved since it is perfectly drops down from all four sides, and must have cracked just being held in that space with salt still being gathered at the back side of the glass. Just my .2 cents thought.

 

I don't buy it, certainly not in my experience. It explodes because it is strong and takes a lot of energy to break it. Something falling and hitting it could certainly do that, but it would take a fair amount of force. Seems like a good experiment. Who has some extra tempered glass sitting around? Should we all in mythbusters?

 

Google tempered glass exploding, you find lots of examples. Also it has been know to break on its own, once again Google it and you'll see.

 

I have to say my engineering brain has been fascinated by this thread today. It wasn't until as of late I even began to consider the event may have been (seemingly) spontaneous. Turns out, that's possible:

Wikipedia on Nickel Sulfide (NiS) Inclusions:

You had a bad (contaminated) piece of glass it seems...

 

This means the NiS increases in size, and the mechanical stresses caused by this cause the tempered pane to shatter, for no apparent reason (hence spontaneous glass breakage).

"Shatter", but go flying 6 feet? That's certainly crazy though.

 

Sure, consider the glass won't break until you reach it's fracture strength. As the NiS particles grow, they continuously create internal strain. Once this strain reaches the critical value, all this stored energy is released as the glass breaks.

*Sidenote*: I now never want a tempered tank.

 

How about a ghost From clown fish past lol.

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