Acrylic scratching

[Krish]

Funny you say that Krish considering you seem to be going down in size more than going up..

LOL...True. Can't get much smaller from here When we sell our Townhouse (probably in the next 2 years) and buy a house, it will be nothing less than a 6 footer

 

[shallowreef]

Now were talking Krish!

 

[mfinn]

I am very curious about glasscages. They seem very reasonable. Any good/bad experiences?

I can let you know about that one in a few weeks,

 

[mattseattle]

The reason i say that acrylic is over rated is yeah its lighter and easier to drill and all that stuff that scooter mentioned, but look at the price difference! Okay now lets look at the weight difference, now i don't know exactly how much lighter acrylic is from glass but lets say on a 125 its 100lbs less. Is that 100lbs really going to matter when you fill it with water and add 100lbs of LR and 40lbs of LS? And unless you plan on moving your tank once a month the weight is really going to make a bit of difference. Now lets look at how easily it scratches. I believe matt said he scratched his from moving a vegi clip that had a rock stuck under the suction cup? Thats insane to pay all that money and then have it scratch that easily. Lets it face no matter how careful we are things are going to happen, its just a fact of life. Also to be honest with you if you look up any tanks breaking i am willing to bet that out of 10 incidents 7 were with acrylic. Any big tanks that i have ever seen are usually made with glass. I think if the price of acrylic came down then it would change my mind but until then i will take a glass tank any day.

Here is a perfect example of something you can do with acrylic that I can not imagine you could do with glass. Yeah, it's not realistic for us hobbyist but it's fun!

The Georgia Aquarium uses acrylic in their tanks!

This is their largest tank:

and this is the acrylic that was used:

so technically the largest tank in the world is made of acrylic!

 

[shallowreef]

I am sure that you could do the same thing with glass. I think it would not be a very wise idea to use acrylic though in a public dispay. Just from all the traffic it gets i'm sure it gets scratched up badly. Also if i had a tank that big i wouldn't care about a 3" scratch in the middle of it because you wouldn't notice it. But on a 6x24x18 size tank that scratch would show up very easily and after you spent all that money you now have to live with the scratch or go to drastic measures to remove it. Either way its a PITA. Also i may be wrong about this so feel free to correct me but doesn't coraline algae mess up acrylic? At one of my LFS had a reef tank made out of acrylic and the back and the sides had coraline on them and when he got it all off the glass looked faded and scratchy. He may have just screwed up but if not that really sucks.

Is there a way to remove coraline algae without scratching the tank? Because i really don't know and i'd like to be set straight.

 

[mattseattle]

Yeah, of course.... I don't have any issues removing coralline without scratching it. You can use a credit card or a plastic scraper and off it comes.

You are making it sound like acrylic is super fragile and it's not as bad as we make it sound. It's also not that bad to repair if you do get a scratch. It gets a little frustrating when you put a new scratch on a new tank but I buffed it out and it looks fine now.

So like I said both have their benefits and both have their purpose. Let's return this thread back to the original thread owner and see if he has any other questions.

 

[shallowreef]

Sounds good to me.

Thanks for the info Matt.

 

[Jaymeany]

Sorry I have been away from the comp lately. This is great info. I am considering finding a 6 foot acrylic tank for my basement. It seems to me that acrylic would be the easiest.