OP
OP
Hey Harold! Thanks for sharing your story! Especially nice hearing from those with ClearView Lids with some age under their belt. We know they are still working great with age...we have original prototypes still in operation and hardly looking like they are of any age at all.
Our ClearView Lids are quite often mistaken for Acrylic, but are the only product we make that ISN'T acrylic. The polycarbonate we use for the ClearView Lids costs about 80% more than an equivalent sheet of acrylic. The difference between them is HUGE! Dry hot conditions from above the lid and tropical humid conditions from below generally spell disaster for acrylic as it more readily absorbs moisture. Acrylic bows/warps much like you'd see a piece of plywood do if it were left out in the yard constantly exposed to moist conditions from below and hot/dry conditions from above.
The extra benefit of polycarbonate towards long term life is it's extreme durability. Acrylic is 8 times more impact resistant than glass....pretty nice. Polycarbonate is 200 times more impact resistant than glass. This is what allows us to use such thin/low profile support tabs. Acrylic that thin is very fragile. ClearView Polycarbonate however can take quite an intentionally negligent beating before seeing even remote signs of damage/stress even in the thinnest area of your lid.
As for your feeding door, maybe you would have better luck with our Locking Feed Door which may have been added to the lineup after your order. It adds a snap fit ring to the bottom of the feed door which add a 2nd set of support tabs on the underside of the door. This then slides onto the feed door opening secured from the top and bottom. It's design intent was to prevent larger wrasses/eels/etc. from knocking the door off the lid and presenting the opening for escape. However, it will also certainly stop you from dropping the door into the tank.
Send us an email to [email protected] and we will set you up with a locking door at the lower price of a replacement standard door with free shipping.
As for the gasket, we use standard window spline which you can find in small quantity for a few bucks at your local HD/Lowes/Ace/etc. All lids are currently made with .175 sized spline. Your lid may however been made with .140 (we changed channel tooling mid generation). Most hardware stores even have a multi pack that includes sections of .125, .140, .175 for cases where consumer's may not know which size they need for an application.
If you email me your name and/or order number I can pull up your original CAD file (yep, we still have EVERY single lid file/configuration/setup we've ever made) and see which was used in production when yours was made.
