Buy what you want. I will not buy a glass tank again...even though I do like the IM ext 200. Wish it was acrylic.
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All arguments here have validity to them, both pros and cons. So instead, let's talk remedy. If you go with acrylic and get a scratch there is no need for a hours long work out to buff it out. Just work smarter, not harder. Magnetic scraper, melamine foam (Magic Eraser), a little bit of velcro strips to hold in place, a routed out block and a drill. Quick and easy.
Edit, should have added that there are products on the market that you could put in place of the melamine foam for buffing out larger scratches. You can do it without emptying the tank.
Great question. I am only speak for the work we do. about 30% to 35% off the roughly 100 to 150 tanks Glass Cages builds monthly are Acrylic. Behind those numbers..... about half of the Acrylics we build are for industrial use. Interesting. Thanks for asking.Thanks! If you’re willing to share, how is the demand between the two? Do you see a growing demand for acrylic or has the ratio stayed steady between the two?
Thanks for sharing!!Great question. I am only speak for the work we do. about 30% to 35% off the roughly 100 to 150 tanks Glass Cages builds monthly are Acrylic. Behind those numbers..... about half of the Acrylics we build are for industrial use. Interesting. Thanks for asking.
a lot of truth there....I think the main reason you don't see mass produced acrylic tanks is that it takes a pretty decent level of skill to complete a nice acrylic tank. And if you screw up, which as a fairly experienced tank builder I can say is pretty easy to do, you just wasted a bunch of expensive material. A trained monkey could build a glass tank. You think all those glass tanks you see in petco have been assembled by people with years of experience? Not super likely.
Hi Joe - well I will be getting quotations from you soon, so we will see what cost the acrylic comes in at.Great question. I am only speak for the work we do. about 30% to 35% off the roughly 100 to 150 tanks Glass Cages builds monthly are Acrylic. Behind those numbers..... about half of the Acrylics we build are for industrial use. Interesting. Thanks for asking.
Well - what are the reasons for loving acrylic other than lower weight? Acrylic may have better clarity for the same thickness, but because acrylic tanks need to be 50 to 100% thicker, that clarity advantage vanishes against low iron glass. My thread above lists more advantages for glass than for acrylic - I welcome to have what I've missed called out!It seems that there are mostly 2 types of people on these glass vs. acrylic threads... Those that love acrylic and say that they'll never go BACK to glass... and then the people that have HEARD how easy acrylic scratches and they'll never buy/try acrylic!
Most acrylic 'lovers' have actual experience/knowledge about both types of tanks, and the choice to remain with acrylic is easy.
just a quick note that acrylic is not stronger than glass wrt allowable stresses - its only impact strength where it has a big advantage - ie children throwing things at it.Just curious, but with the benefits of acrylic we hear about (price, weight, strength, etc.), why don’t the major brands (Red Sea, Waterbox, Planet Aquarium, Glass Cages, etc.) make acrylic tanks instead of glass? It would be much cheaper to ship lighter material. Seems like there some deterrent for them to be mass produced.
I watched that video. Sure, if you own an acrylic tank and are desperate to get rid of scratches - great solution. However, I don't want to be doing that on a monster aquarium on a regular basis - looks like a PITA to me.That is an absolutely FANTASTIC idea... TOTALLY "borrowing" LoL
Thanks Reefer Reboot for that feedback. I hope those shoulders are doing ok. I've had knee and elbow surgeries with mixed results - the knee is good but the elbow is not great. I guess there really is two separate issues that are obviously related. One issue is removing algae while the other is removing scratches. Both glass and acrylic will have algae growth that needs to be cleaned. The issue is whether accumulative cleaning leads to the 2nd issue, which is scratching. I think the general conclusion is that keeping acrylic panes clean from algae leads to accumulative micro-scratching, which then leads to the need to buff. I fully concede that there are ways to accomplish such buffing. The personal matter I raise is the size and type of aquarium I am considering to build.For the sake of clarification let me say that I made this device in the video after going through back to back shoulder surgeries. It actually made it much easier to remove the heavy algae build up that had occurred while I was unable to do much. Now I don't have a 1600 gallon tank, mine is only around 150 gallons, but it sure makes quick work of it if I let it go for too long. It also works at any depth! So, to each their own, but I'll stick with acrylic.
This is provably false. The number of threads about bottom seams blowing out on glass tanks far exceed those on acrylic, mostly because the strength of an Acrylic weld far exceeds, by more than an order of magnitude, the strength of silicone and glass. The only acrylic tanks that I've heard blow out a bottom seam were those made with WO40/42 which is an acrylic adhesive with superior strength if done correctly but with horrible strength if done poorly. WO4 will weld with a strength of 2500 psi, your tank will not see even 1/20th that at 36" (16PSI FWIW). Compare that to Dowsil 795, everyone's favorite structural silcone at 45 psi and I think you'll understand why the people who own acrylic continue to own it.Glass tanks are less likely to have catastrophic failure at their joints than acrylic, because "welds" can be poorly executed.
@DJKNOX, 1" thick glass. or even Low-Iron at 1" thick. Yup, hard to find if you can. Here is an alternative to think about. Laminated Low-Iron Glass. Two sheets of Low-Iron glass laminated together with a PVB (polyvinyl butyral) interlayer. Looks incredible. Just a thought. We play with a lot of glass options here at Glass Cages.Well, I do appreciate everyone's input. Frankly for medium-sized home aquariums... say <400 gal, I really can't see any great benefit in acrylic vs low iron glass. However, as costs are not absurd in those size ranges, I also don't see any big argument against acrylic either. I would go with glass because the top can be rimless (with euro bracing), construction has likely a lot less to go wrong, and scratching is really a non-issue except for extreme events. Glass tanks are less likely to have catastrophic failure at their joints than acrylic, because "welds" can be poorly executed. However, if one moves around a lot, the lightweight acrylic tank will be much appreciated! So I think one can choose glass or acrylic to suit their specific needs. For my 1600 gal island aquarium, extra costs for acrylic are significant. And, keeping very large and deep panels clean week in, week out, and the need to buff out micro-scratching, makes me inclined to believe that the acrylic tank will be a lot of work. Also, at 4 ft deep, please explain how I will buff out scratches below the 2 ft depth? For the glass aquarium, I can rest assured that with a little care, I will never have to repair panels at a 3 to 4 ft depth!
Frankly, my biggest concern with glass is that I can only buy low iron glass up to 3/4" unless I buy and ship from China . The US seems to have abandoned 1" glass . This means that structurally, to use 3/4" glass, I need double euro-bracing top and bottom and of course if the silicone seal breaks between the bracing and panel (silicone peel strength is only ~ 40 psi), the dynamic stress on that panel could cause a problem ( the deflection on the panel from full euro and cross bracing to zero bracing would shift 2" - not good) . My bottom line is that if I could buy Starphire glass at 1", I see no value in acrylic simply because I won't be moving this tank, and what they do with it when I'm 6ft under is not my concern.