EpisodeMnH
Community Member
Yesterday I unfortunately noticed a 2 inch long or so scratch smack dab in the center of the front pane of glass on the tank. Due to it’s location and how noticeable it was, I’m thinking it had to have just happened. Here’s the thing, I haven’t used a razor or touched the glass in weeks, and I don’t keep anything like a Mag-Float attached to the glass. When I do scrape the glass, I don’t even use a specific aquarium type razor, just a plain razor blade by itself, and I also make sure it’s flat to the glass and not at an angle. I feel like I would have noticed it immediately if it was my own fault.
This is why I’m beginning to think it may have been one of the inhabitants. I have a bunch of very large Trochus, and anytime another snail or one of the hermits hitches a ride on their shell, they do this aggressive spinning move to shake them off. This usually leads to them smacking the glass, which has been alarmingly loud before and worried me about cracking the glass. It’s literally been loud and frequent enough in the past to wake me up some nights. On top of that, there has definitely been times where small clumps of sand were either attached to one of their shells or being dragged by them, so it’s not exactly out of the question for them to have had sand attached, did the spin thing, and scratched the glass. I also have a Tuxedo Urchin. I’ve heard of them marking acrylic up, not sure if they’re capable on glass as well.
Either way this is extremely frustrating and of course with my luck it’s dead center in the front. I wouldn’t even care if this was a side pane or the back but it’s in literally the worst location possible. 3 years without incident and then I essentially wake up to this. And I’m unfortunately at a point where I just have to suck it up and deal with it because I’m aware there’s not many options as far as removing the scratch, and going thru the effort to drain the tank and rehome everything to a new tank over one single scratch definitely seems dramatic. But still it’s frustrating.
Has anyone ever had something similar happen where you didn’t think the scratches were due to user error?
This is why I’m beginning to think it may have been one of the inhabitants. I have a bunch of very large Trochus, and anytime another snail or one of the hermits hitches a ride on their shell, they do this aggressive spinning move to shake them off. This usually leads to them smacking the glass, which has been alarmingly loud before and worried me about cracking the glass. It’s literally been loud and frequent enough in the past to wake me up some nights. On top of that, there has definitely been times where small clumps of sand were either attached to one of their shells or being dragged by them, so it’s not exactly out of the question for them to have had sand attached, did the spin thing, and scratched the glass. I also have a Tuxedo Urchin. I’ve heard of them marking acrylic up, not sure if they’re capable on glass as well.
Either way this is extremely frustrating and of course with my luck it’s dead center in the front. I wouldn’t even care if this was a side pane or the back but it’s in literally the worst location possible. 3 years without incident and then I essentially wake up to this. And I’m unfortunately at a point where I just have to suck it up and deal with it because I’m aware there’s not many options as far as removing the scratch, and going thru the effort to drain the tank and rehome everything to a new tank over one single scratch definitely seems dramatic. But still it’s frustrating.
Has anyone ever had something similar happen where you didn’t think the scratches were due to user error?
