Acrylic Tank Owners Chime in Please!

[outdrsyguy1]

Okay, so i'm looking at possibly buying a LARGE, LARGE acrylic tank (new). I would like to get a little feedback from acrylic tank owners (past and present) on their feel for it. This tank would need to last 20+ years so i'm curious about seam reliability vs glass (caulk), scratching, and lastly work load to keep it clean and scratch free.

With my glass, if I go a week no biggie, hammerhead cleaner magnet plus razor blade where needed and bam, clean as a whistle. I've read that once the corraline starts to grow on acrylic it's hard to get off without scratching, so you end up having to make sure to clean the walls a lot to avoid having to scrape things off.

Please be so kind as to post your experiences/ recommendations!

Thanks in advance!

 

[russ-iv]

why 20+ years? after 8 the acrylic will yellow. before then you will have scratches from cleaning with a mag float?

this will be a very polarized debate i think. The tank will hold water. but im not sure the quality viewing will be the same.

glass lasts 20 years as well

if you are going over 400 gallons i would understand though.

 

[outdrsyguy1]

Hmm... never considered the yellowing thing, that's very disturbing. I would be super pissed if this thing was yellow after 8 years. I assume there's no way to "un yellow" it
and yes, i was looking at something over 400 gallons

 

[jbdreefs]

If I were building a tank that I were to own for 20 years, I would go glass to minimize scratches.

However... Aren't the big commercial aquariums using acrylic? I wonder what their plan is for hazing and "yellowing"?

 

[bcavalli]

If I'm not mistaken some of the manufactures have added uv stabilizers in the material to minimize the yellowing that would occur over time.

 

[jennm]

Over about 300 gallons, acrylic is more cost-effective, as well as practical.

Cheap acrylic will yellow and craze. Better quality acrylic won't - at least not in the short term.

Scratches are inevitable. Acrylic can be buffed out. Glass can't. It's a pain, but it's doable.

For a 400+ I would go acrylic but make sure you get the best quality available. That comes at a price, but if you plan to keep it for 20 years, it will be worth the cost on the front end.

Jenn

 

[the fish store]

We have a (2) 1,000 gallon acrylic tanks available. (1) is 96" x 48" x 48", and the other is 96" x 72" x 36". Also have (1) 500g, (3) 300g, and a 220. Also have a 96" x 24" x 48" double bull nose.

 

[russ-iv]

outdrsyguy1;1036889 wrote: Hmm... never considered the yellowing thing, that's very disturbing. I would be super pissed if this thing was yellow after 8 years. I assume there's no way to "un yellow" it
and yes, i was looking at something over 400 gallons

Yeah i would be too if i had such a large tank. Maybe see if UV stabilized ones will prevent it from yellowing over time. I've just seen it happen and it wasnt pretty. They ended up breaking the whole tank down and using a buff wheel to get it out. so it can be removed as it seems to only be a surface layer.

i also agree with jenn on the 300+ gallon thing. I picked my tank out because i wanted the largest "practical" glass tank possible. Anything larger than the 300 DD tank, and i would have gone acrylic. However acrylic can warp, bend, scratches, can yellow.
Pros are when it is brand new it is clearer than glass (although starfire glass is around now)
wont crack
seems wont burst
impact resistant
wayyyyyyy lighter than glass (180-265s are ball busters)

you can get scratches out of glass but it involves draining the tank, using sand paper to even out the gouge, and then a glass pumice-style polish with a drill or rotary pad. it is incredibly labor intensive and i still ended up with a slight lensing due to the depth of the scratch being smoothed over the distance of the buffer.

hope you can get an anti-yellow guarantee

 

[outdrsyguy1]

I was looking at the manufactures online and pretty much all of them had a ten-year guarantee against yellowing right now. I think plexiglass even had a lifetime guarantee.

 

[outdrsyguy1]

And this would be 600+ gallons so the weight issue and they seem reliability is my major concern.

 

[russ-iv]

outdrsyguy1;1036933 wrote: And this would be 600+ gallons so the weight issue and they seem reliability is my major concern.

no brainer. acrylic.

keep it away from windows and be careful. thats a lot of viewing area to clean lol


oh and feel happy you wont have an issue like this....

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[skriz]

As Jenn said, low end/cheap acrylic will yellow. Go cheap and get junk, guaranteed. The top tier acrylic won't yellow and is more dense, meaning it won't scratch as easily as the cheap stuff.

Scratching: use the right tools and acrylic won't scratch like you think. Plus, it's EASY to remove most scratches from acrylic. Glass scratches are near impossible to remove. Starphire glass is softer and scratches very easily. My Starphire tank has a ton of scratches. My acrylic tank had none (it got some, but I buffed them out within minutes).

Weight: acrylic is lighter than glass.

Bonus: large acrylic tanks are bullet proof

R

 

[outdrsyguy1]

Man that's horrifying! There are some windows about 8 feet away from the side but they have Venetian blinds which are always closed. I'll probably get some better ones anyways since this will be a media type room mostly.

 

[outdrsyguy1]

Thanks skriz. Appreciate all the feedback everyone. I think I'm good for now.