I've built some smaller tanks / sumps with good success and have had a couple bigger rimless tanks custom built for me. My 30x24x24 rimless (braceless) tank was made with 1/2" (12mm) glass all around, so dropping that down to 16" high will allow for a little thinner glass but since it'll be starphire you'll want to take that back up again. I would tend to look at 1/2" (12mm) if I were building a tank of your dims and material. Previous poster's suggestion for 10mm is probably be acceptable with a decent safety factor, but the tanks that have been built for me have always been built very well and tend to put a little more glass in them.
As for silicone, you definitely want to have the right materials. I don't recall the proper GE silicones to use, but some searching of the forums will find it. Beware of anything anti-bacteria or anti-mildew! I've always used the small packaged silicone from the aquarium stores for my smaller builds and had good success with that. More expensive than the bigger tubes for sure but when it's only a 10 or 20gal tank you don't need much! I was considering building my last shallow reef tank DIY but was having a hard time finding a glass shop that would give me 3/8" panels with polished edges (hard to snap a square edge on anything over 1/4"). If you don't mind, I'd like to know the name of the shop you're working with so I can get in touch with them on my next project!
I've had my last two tanks built by a local company called H2O aquariums if I recall the name correctly. I bought those tanks through Ocean Aquatics, but since they're out of business now I'm not sure who H2O sell through now. Let me know if you want to look into having a tank built I will try to get you in touch with H2O as they do excellent work.
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