At what point is acrylic 'better' than glass?

[kangadrew]

Limited to 110" so 10" short of the dream.

True, did see that. I'd take a 110"x1" sheet over a 120"x3/4" though .

Actually scratch that - I'd take a fiberglass with two windows

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

just buy a season pass to the local aquarium. There are days I wish i did that instead.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

cough..... https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/reefers-worst-nightmare.733465/ .....cough

 

[DJKNOX]

Thanks for the link. Apparently Starphire is no longer made in 1" by US suppliers - at least that is the feedback I've been getting thus far. However, I noticed 1" Starphire being offered in Australia, so am still trying to get to the bottom of it. I'll send out a few more emails just to make sure. Glasscages also advised that 3/4" is the maximum.

 

[JustinForMayor]

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.

Do you not recommend Weld-On 4? About to build a 72x36x24

 

[DSEKULA]

It's not really better or worse, there's pro and cons to glass and acrylic. Research and choose what's better for your needs. Here are my tanks, 155gals and 2gals both are acrylic because I can't build curved tanks with glass and I love curved tanks. The 155 wraps around the corner of the room.

 

[TheStrangler]

I had a little 36 gallon bowfront acrylic tank for close to 10 years and there wasn't a single scratch in it and it didn't yellow. When I dragged it out of my house and caught a few door frames on the way out, it still didn't scratch. I believe I have a much larger battle, albeit not a difficult one, with controlling temperature in a glass tank versus the acrylic.

 

[Lowell Lemon]

Do you not recommend Weld-On 4? About to build a 72x36x24

No I recommend a solvent from scratch and you can find the formula on the acrylic forum on R2R. Weld on 40 will fail at low impact unless you can heat anneal the whole tank in an oven after fabrication and polishing. No one ever does this due to the cost of the oven. So a solvent weld like #4 or #3 is better but not great due to the short shelf life of the commercial solvents. Weld on 42 is easier to use due to the mixing on delivery from the gun and mixing tips...but still weak compared to the solvent mix recommended by the acrylic forum. PM me if you want more info.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

Do you not recommend Weld-On 4? About to build a 72x36x24

Definately PM him for the mixture!! Weld on is good for lids, shelfs, little things. But the diffence between that and the home mix stuff is NIGHT AND DAY!!

The one ingrediant you have to have shipped to a business adress (if i remember correctly).

 

[Buffalou]

I had a 220 gal glass tank blow out at front right side seam, we were out of town and returned to a mess! I said uncle and took a break from reefing for about a year, resurrected an 80 gal half round tank and it's been up and running for about a year and a half. All I can think about is that seam blowing out on the 220, it's causing me to seriously research and consider tank construction. I realize that keeping 100's of gallons of water in a floating suspension in your home is risky business in the first place but, the glass tank and my experience with it has me almost convinced to go acrylic. I'm planning on upgrading soon to larger tank and I'm leaning towards eliminating silicone seals as the weakest link in the chain. Thank you everyone for the education on this.

 

[((FORDTECH))]

Fordtech that feedback is appreciated - especially on the no-yellowing as claimed by others here. 1/2" acrylic is under-designed and so requires excessive bracing. So you actually help make my point that a well-designed acrylic tank really should use a much heavier wall than one would with glass. But once that heavier wall is used with good bracing, I think the acrylic design is structurally sound. As for 20 year silicone seals, I know several folks still running their tanks from the 1990s and have never replaced the structural component of their joints. They have re-lined the inner-seal portions. Those tanks are 125 to 400 gal in size but none are deeper than 27."

Figured since I shared my 300 gallon acrylic info with you that I would now share my 120 gallon glass reef ready experience with you. Tank is 7 years old has 15,000$ worth of corals in it and blew a seam out last night 2am as I was getting up to go to bed I heard the water running. Needless to say 12 hours later still haven’t gone to bed lost only 1 fish so far my yashi goby is gone must have gotten buried while removing rocks cause he lived under them with his partner pistol shrimp. I got pistol shrimp came out from rock yashi Must have dove into sand and never seen again and I looked hard. My corals are now spread out threw undesirable tanks for corals like in my anemone tank being stung and in my aptasia breeding tanks. Had to do what I had to do. Now have 3 fans running and dehumidifier in living room as the water still drips threw the floor into basement. What a horrible night

 

[Reefer Reboot]

Oh man that sucks!;Drowning I'd rather deal with the downside of acrylic any day. Best of luck!

 

[snorklr]

if djknox is still lurking out there...how about you just slide a piece of acrylic into whatever setup you're currently running , let it get full of coraline and see if you can get it clean without damaging it?

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

IMO.. anything over 240 in glass is asking for trouble. People seem to forget that silicone is just slowly degrading over time. Eventually it WILL fail.

It is almost comical, people seem to get hung up on the fact that you will scratch an acrylic tank. But they forget that fixing scratches will take you a couple hours of work.

Sorry about your tank blow out.. that sounds like a debilitating horror show.

 

[alimac122]

How do public aquariums maintain the condition of their acrylic walls then?

Hi! I worked at one. Periodically we would empty the tanks and buff out the scratches. Some can’t get buffed out but most can. After about 5 years a tank needs a good buff.

 

[rob taft]

Alimac, In your experience, how much of the scratching was inside versus outside.

 

[alimac122]

Alimac, In your experience, how much of the scratching was inside versus outside.

Just depended on the tank really. If there is a lot of rock work in the tank, or triggers or parrots there tends to be a higher degree of scratching. And on tanks that we had divers in, those had some scratches from weight belts and such. Never really saw a rhyme or reason to it. Also some new biologist that had no idea acrylic and metal scrapers dont mix. So user errors. Or rockwork not being built stable and falling on the panes. All sorts of things. Now, I will say when kids would have snacks in their hands, or smushed souvenir pennies and tap on the acrylic with these things, there definitely is a degree of damage outside. but the outside was never really the concern. So if I had to answer your question definitively, I would say inside.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

As an owner of a tank without divers or parrot fish, I can say that most of the scratches on the inside of my tank have been from a dirty magnetic scraper. Outside scratches have been from banging things into the tank, like a ladder... LOL.

I recently restored a big acrylic tank that had a long spine urchin in the tank and man, it was trashed on the inside. Restorable, but the level of damage required to work in the dry. All my other scratches have been able to be removed with water in the tank.

 

[rob taft]

Alimac, Thanks for your reply. rob

 

[iLMaRiO]

guys, just to recap, what would you use to clean the acrylic ?

actually I have the tunze long and the magfloat acrylic. not really sure if they are good.

any better tool that is acrylis safe ?