At what point is acrylic 'better' than glass?

Lowell Lemon

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Just my opinion.

I will settle it for you from a liability and insurance stand point. 30 plus years ago I had the opportunity to purchase a fairly large regional glass tank manufacturer. When I went shopping for liability insurance not one company would underwrite the policy period. Then I looked at establishing my own company fabricating acrylic aquariums and 2 million aggregate only cost me $750 per year. In the actuarial tables there were very low risk levels for acrylic...not so with glass. I manufactured acrylic aquariums up to 16' long and 4' tall for over 30 years. Guess what those large tanks are still on display and being used today. I am glad I listened to the insurance companies and not the guy selling the glass aquarium company.

All the claims about yellowing are a thing of the past due to all the manufacturing processes using UV stabilized acrylics.

Acrylic is 6-10 times more impact resistant. Acrylic just like glass can scratch but just try to re-polish a glass tank with a scratch. Acrylic is lighter and I often delivered aquariums up to 240 gallons by myself...try that with glass. Moving a large glass tank is just dangerous and all it takes is a small tap to an edge or corner and the tank is chipped, split and done. Hopefully you or your buddies did not get seriously cut in the process.

Every professional level public aquarium has acrylic or glass clad acrylic panels. Guess why...thermal efficency, and impact resistance. Yep it is for the safety of their guests.

Bad mouth acrylic all you want but when it comes time to resell any aquarium you will only get pennies on the dollar since no one wants a used aquarium that might leak.

Alot of the custom glass tanks you can buy today are way more expensive than acrylic due to risk of damage due to shipping and crating requirements. And in an effort to make them stronger you often have big black seams to reinforce the main panels. Acrylic seams properly done are water clear and just as strong as the parent material.

I have noticed many manufacturing companies using continous cast or extruded acrylic for sumps and small tanks and this is just not acceptable. Only properly gauged cell cast acrylic with proper solvent bonds should be used ever. That means forget the Sci grip junk like weld on 3, 4, 16, and 40. 42 can be used for some designs but the panels will separate with impact cleanly along a seam versus using proper on site mixed solvents.

I will never convince some of the haters of acrylic until their beloved glass tank splits or explodes some day or night in front of them. In all the years of building acrylic I only had one warranty claim and it was due to using weld on 4 early on in my career. I researched the problem developed a solution, built the customer a new tank, and paid for the replacement livestock. Fortunately there was no damage to the customers house. I would do it all over again with acrylic versus glass. And yes I built and sold glass tanks for many years and have the experience necessary to just about build any glass tank I want. For any tank over 70 gallons I will never use glass due to the damage potential and liability.

Good luck with your choice.
 
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jlts21

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This is funny. Of coarse I want a fake looking reef when buying an acrylic tank said nobody ever. If barebottom is your fix, sorry ‘bout ya
Mine does not look fake at all. And most that I’ve seen that use white instead black look pretty close to sand. And would eliminating sand not keep sand from scratching your acrylic???
 

Aardvark1134

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Don't like sand never did. Even back on my 1st salt water back in the 80s I had fairly large crushed coral instead of sand. Bare bottom or crushed but no way I am putting sand in there. Wrase ...there is some tupperware for you in the far corner with your sand.
 

hllb

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Just my opinion.

I will settle it for you from a liability and insurance stand point. 30 plus years ago I had the opportunity to purchase a fairly large regional glass tank manufacturer. When I went shopping for liability insurance not one company would underwrite the policy period. Then I looked at establishing my own company fabricating acrylic aquariums and 2 million aggregate only cost me $750 per year. In the actuarial tables there were very low risk levels for acrylic...not so with glass. I manufactured acrylic aquariums up to 16' long and 4' tall for over 30 years. Guess what those large tanks are still on display and being used today. I am glad I listened to the insurance companies and not the guy selling the glass aquarium company.

All the claims about yellowing are a thing of the past due to all the manufacturing processes using UV stabilized acrylics.

Acrylic is 6-10 times more impact resistant. Acrylic just like glass can scratch but just try to re-polish a glass tank with a scratch. Acrylic is lighter and I often delivered aquariums up to 240 gallons by myself...try that with glass. Moving a large glass tank is just dangerous and all it takes is a small tap to an edge or corner and the tank is chipped, split and done. Hopefully you or your buddies did not get seriously cut in the process.

Every professional level public aquarium has acrylic or glass clad acrylic panels. Guess why...thermal efficency, and impact resistance. Yep it is for the safety of their guests.

Bad mouth acrylic all you want but when it comes time to resell any aquarium you will only get pennies on the dollar since no one wants a used aquarium that might leak.

Alot of the custom glass tanks you can buy today are way more expensive than acrylic due to risk of damage due to shipping and crating requirements. And in an effort to make them stronger you often have big black seams to reinforce the main panels. Acrylic seams properly done are water clear and just as strong as the parent material.

I have noticed many manufacturing companies using continous cast or extruded acrylic for sumps and small tanks and this is just not acceptable. Only properly gauged cell cast acrylic with proper solvent bonds should be used ever. That means forget the Sci grip junk like weld on 3, 4, 16, and 40. 42 can be used for some designs but the panels will separate with impact cleanly along a seam versus using proper on site mixed solvents.

I will never convince some of the haters of acrylic until their beloved glass tank splits or explodes some day or night in front of them. In all the years of building acrylic I only had one warranty claim and it was due to using weld on 4 early on in my career. I researched the problem developed a solution, built the customer a new tank, and paid for the replacement livestock. Fortunately there was no damage to the customers house. I would do it all over again with acrylic versus glass. And yes I built and sold glass tanks for many years and have the experience necessary to just about build any glass tank I want. For any tank over 70 gallons I will never use glass due to the damage potential and liability.

Good luck with your choice.
My husband definitely would prefer I have acrylic. And he’d prefer no sump too lol. He was not impressed when a hose popped off my 120g and flooded the room while I was sleeping. Oops.
 

lapin

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I built my own tank. 5x5x3. I was able to lift 1" thick acrylic panels and get them welded to the bottom by myself. If it was glass I would have needed help every step of the way. I like my tank. I also built my 150g sump out of acrylic.
 

rob taft

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My 50 gallon acrylic is 15 years old. I have very few scratches and it doesn't have the slightest bit of yellowing. I am very careful when I clean the glass and I clean it daily with a mag float made for acrylic. I am getting ready to upgrade to a much larger tank and it will be acrylic. I know how to avoid scratches and know how to polish them out if I do but besides the weight aspect, I also feel much better about acrylic from a failure point of view.
 

Vincent Azzano

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I think glass is better just because I don’t think the price difference is worth it for the acrylic. Acrylic is also easier to scratch but it does look very nice if you keep very good care of it.
I've noticed a strong preference for glass aquariums around here, and I totally get why. I'm thinkging about upgrading to a much larger setup (73 gal display is a little limiting, no tangs/etc) in a house I'm purchasing and am considering using acrylic for weight reasons. Are the benefits of using acrylic going to be noticeable at the typical size for home aquariums, even 'monster' 1000g systems?
 

vetteguy53081

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I was anti- acrylic, then got a custom drop off tank in acrylic.
Then last year I bought my 660g in acrylic and could kick myself for holding out. I love acrylic. Not dealing with scratch issues as yes you have to be careful, but careful costs time, not materials. It weighed as much empty as my 360g glass tank did and everything is magnified when you look thru 1.25" thickness. Heat retention is excellent as my heater rarely kicks in and there glow from the lights are amazing.
 

sarcophytonIndy

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For a reef I would always go with glass. For a fish-only system, I would consider acrylic if over 220 gallon
 

squampton

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I prefer acrylic but have glass since acrylic tanks are difficult to find locally and I don't have money for custom or ordering from the US, so glass it is. In the 90's to early 00's I had an acrylic, only 50 gallons, never had issue with scratches, I did manage a small one on the inside but it wasn't noticeable and I could move a 50 gallon acrylic easier.

I have managed to break 2 glass tanks in moving, so another issue, but never damaged the acrylic I had..
 

Jpconer

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My 13+ yr old 450g fowlr is acrylic and just went through my move to a new house....I have very few scratches simply because I've been careful over the years....BUT...I also am in process of setting up a Red Sea 425xl as I would not do a reef tank in acrylic because of the coralline issue
 

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hart24601

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Curious what their reasons are. I bought acrylic 15+ years ago. Had the tanks up maybe 6 years before exiting the hobby when I had two small kids. Still loved them (and sold my tanks at decent prices) at the end.
Almost 100% the scratches. Think bowing freaked out a couple though.
 

Jon Fishman

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My 13+ yr old 450g fowlr is acrylic and just went through my move to a new house....I have very few scratches simply because I've been careful over the years....BUT...I also am in process of setting up a Red Sea 425xl as I would not do a reef tank in acrylic because of the coralline issue

Curious..... What coralline issues?

I clean off my viewing sides with magic-erasers..... I don’t clean the back. If coralline grows on the back/bottom, and you don’t like that, scrape it off..... so what if it scratches, you don’t look through the bottom right?
 

ParadoX

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Im a tank designer/installer. For high end tanks, we exclusively use glass up until 300-400g mark where it gets logistically too much to handle. We use hybrid Glass/pvc/acrylic tanks. Still heavier, but lighter and stronger than normal glass tanks. Weve care for about 100 tanks, and have build about that many. The only glass tanks we ever had leak were old ones we never installed made by a company thats out of business or a petco level tank.

We have some tanks going on 8+ years and look perfect. Not a single scratch. Cleaning glass takes 20 seconds vs 20 minutes. Add that up through the years every 2 weeks or so and yourve wasted a lot of time scrubbing a tank instead of enjoying it.
 

JPergamo

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I have the same Aqeon 180 for about 15 years. It's been wet the entire time. It's old fashioned and rimmed and maybe that gives me some piece of mind about the seems. I am fascinated by this debate. I plan on doing a dream build in the future, and being that my reef systems are in the basement with only access through interior stairs, acrylic being lighter is a draw. I have a frag tank that is a 40 breeder in acrylic and it has definitely scratched plenty in the past years. That being said, I never took the care required to avoid it. If acrylic really takes that much more time to clean coraline off, that is a big downside no matter how you slice it but I have never had a display tank in acrylic so I do not have experience to give a valid opinion.
 
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