bowfront26 Posted September 3, 2004 Share Posted September 3, 2004 I am thinking of setting up a 55 g. rectangular acrylic tank. I am not too worried about the price of the tank it's about $150.00(anyone know a good place in so cal. to buy clear for life tanks), I am wondering about how prone to scratching acrylic is. Are we just talking about the rocks scraping the sides? Or does every little thing scratch it? Do glass tanks really leak or crack after a while? Link to comment
Withers Posted September 4, 2004 Share Posted September 4, 2004 sand is your biggest enemy with an acrylic tank (after the live rock is in and settled) if a little piece of sand gets in your magnet (or an f'ing bristleworm in my case) you can put a lot of scratches in the tank before you notice it (or if your girlfriend likes to clean the tank while talking on her cellphone) but, on the bright side, the scratches can be buffed out. i'm still learning the proper way to do this however, i've got to get rid of about 1 mile of scratches it seems on a side note, 150.00 is a steal and a half on a 55 gallon acrylic tank. mine is approximately 55 gallons and it cost me 250.00, and that only included about 20 bucks worth of labor (it was made by a friend) but then again, its not exactly a simple rectangle Jason Link to comment
bowfront26 Posted September 4, 2004 Author Share Posted September 4, 2004 Interesting... Are the mag floats for acrylic working nicely. I mean do you have to worry about it making minor scratches or only if there is sand caught between. Yea $150.00 for a 55 gallon clear for life rectangular tank. I believe it even comes with some weak flourescent light strip. All from a store in socal. Exoticfish.com ... nice web site. I heard they also have sweet LR. (sorry 165.00) Link to comment
bobioden Posted September 4, 2004 Share Posted September 4, 2004 I HATED my acrylic tank. When I first set it up, the rock just touching the tank scratched it all up. After that when cleaning with a Mag-float if ANY tiny little piece of sand was anywhere near, it scratched like crazy. All the scraches loved to grow algae which made it impossible to scrape clean. Acylic is very nice to look at, but not very user friendly. I swithced to glass and have never been happier. Link to comment
ricky1414 Posted September 4, 2004 Share Posted September 4, 2004 I bought a 50 gal clear for life acrylic for about 100 bucks. Link to comment
MKramer Posted September 5, 2004 Share Posted September 5, 2004 I have several clear for life tanks, without a scratch (yet). I get mine form Tropical Reef in Torrance. They recently changed ownership, though, so I don't know if they still deal with the same suppliers. I'm guessing they do. I use a little plastic scraper blade for the heavy cleaning (like coraline deposits), and acrylic-safe scrubber pads for regular cleaning. As has been said already, the most important thing is to avoid getting sand in the pad. Most of my tanks are bare-bottom, so that's pretty easy. The ones that used crushed coral, I make sure I move VERY slowly around the bottom, to not stir things up. Link to comment
MKramer Posted September 5, 2004 Share Posted September 5, 2004 bowfront: Jeff's Exotic Fish's liverock can be nice if it's managed to sit around in their tanks for a while. Very often it's new and quite nasty, though. And Jeff will tell you just about anything you want to hear to convince you to buy it, so never take his word on the condition of his goods. Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.