Acylic + Scratch = Sad

[phisquare]

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[Anonymous]

I have a love/hate relationship with acrylic tanks...my freshwater 400 gallon for safety/weight reasons will be acrylic, but that's it. Glass only from now on.

I've done the acrylic/scratch thing enough for one lifetime...

I know this doesn't help you...just venting.

:?

 

[Anonymous]

I get headaches from concentrating so hard on not scratching my acrylic tanks. I can't stand it. I find that I don't clean the panes as much because they are acrylic too.

 

[Anonymous]

I get headaches from concentrating so hard on not scratching my acrylic tanks.

Exactly!
Again...not helping...

Phis, the kits work, but it's WORK....
Good luck.

 

[Anonymous]

I scratched my tank to high heaven, it looks like total sh*t. At first it wasn't THAT bad with algae growing in the cracks.. I just notice it and can scrape it away. Now I have white precipitation type stuff forming in the scratches (yeah just great)... and that's almost impossible to remove.

I thought about buying one of those kits, but eh, it does sound like a ton of elbow grease, I'd hate to spend $40 on a kit and find out after a few days of work that bought me a 2x2 foot square of tank that is only moderately better.

I'm with Jim, next tank is going to be glass, although I'll probably due a custom plywood one, and just put one big honking piece of starfire/low iron glass for the viewing pane.

 

[Len]

FWIW, I've tried scratch removal kits and they work, but do require a lot of work. The one caveat: when you drain the tank dry, you see a lot of hazy micro scratches which weren't visible underwater. I probably didn't buff/polish enough though.

 

[dbsherwood]

I have a 700 gallon acrylic tank with roughly 54 square feet of exposed acrylic, and it gets scratched all the time for one reason or another--it's just part of life of having acrylic. The only way to get them out is elbow grease, and you should also look at the magnets and sandpaper on Seavisions.com--I particularly like their sandpaper but use different magnets.

My recommendation is to find two high school kids in your neighborhood and hire them once in a while to polish your tank (yes, I'm lazy). Two people alternating using the magnets cuts down the time and keeps them from getting exhausted. It'll also save you from killing yourself on your tank, and make you a happier person in general . Finally, when you're cleaning your tank, use the 1 micron sandpaper on a regular basis and you'll help keep the acrylic nicely polished.

Good luck. What someone needs to do is invent a magnetic polisher that would spin the magnet on the inside of the tank. Anyone?

 

[Anonymous]

>...Good luck. What someone needs to do is invent a magnetic polisher that would spin the magnet on the inside of the tank. Anyone?

Yeah, but if a piece of sand get caught in the spinner, you will probably want to sue the manufacturer!

 

[Anonymous]

LOL

 

[Anonymous]

The one caveat: when you drain the tank dry

Are you talking about doing a dry sanding? My problem is I need to do an underwater repair job.

I need to look into some of those sanding pads though, sure it might take a long time, but hey a little work every day should be good in no time.

 

[Len]

Nah, I meant when the tank is empty/dry, you will see all the micro abrasions from the sanding (I did this underwater). When the tank is filled though, the water seems to mask these micro imperfections and the tank looks pretty clear to the naked eye.

 

[blackcloudmedia]

Wow, so after reading this thread Im turned off to acrylic forever lol. Its gut wrenching.

 

[phisquare]

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[Anonymous]

Nah, I meant when the tank is empty/dry, you will see all the micro abrasions from the sanding (I did this underwater). When the tank is filled though, the water seems to mask these micro imperfections and the tank looks pretty clear to the naked eye.

So do you have a little list of the pads you went through? I think I'd like to try this out sometime since my nice sps really is ugly with all the scratches.

 

[AF Founder]

Hey guys. So from the topic I assume you already know what this is about. A piece of sand got stuck on my magnet cleaner and I scratched the high heavens out of the thing. So I went ahead and ordered this to try and rectify the problem. I've read reviews that is does in fact work but requires a lot of elbow grease. Anyone have any experience with kits like these? My tank has no fish or corals, only live rock sand and a very few snails and hermits This kit supposedly works underwater, do you think it's safe to use in my tank or no? What should I do?

phi

I hate acrylic too, but had zero choice. Check out this month's editorial, where I discuss this. And check ou this company; they do have motorized scratch removal eq. Here is the link, http://www.etr-inc.com/

 

[dbsherwood]

Terry,

Thanks for sharing. In looking at the etr-inc website, my challenge with their wet sanders (aside from the standard magnetic ones) is that they expect to put the sander in the tank. While that will probably work for public aquarium tanks, guys like me who have a lot of acrylic to keep clean don't necessarily have means to do polishing work inside the tank (it woudl be impossible for me to reach in with a device and do such polishing). As such, it would be great if someone could come up with a polisher that could vibrate the sandpaper on the inside.

I'm not holding my breath on this one, but we can all dream of maintenance-free acrylic, can't we?

What about a manufacturer coming up with some sort of super-hard coating for the inside of the tank?

 

[Anonymous]

What about a manufacturer coming up with some sort of super-hard coating for the inside of the tank?

They did.. it's called glass

 

[Anonymous]

There are silicated acrylic used in aircraft canopy and other applications. It is harder to work with, and not as scratch resistance as glass. The various "SR" class of acrylic is this type.

Other approach is glass-laminated acrylic. The issue with that is that the materials has different expansion coefficient, I heard.

 

[AF Founder]

There are silicated acrylic used in aircraft canopy and other applications. It is harder to work with, and not as scratch resistance as glass. The various "SR" class of acrylic is this type.

Other approach is glass-laminated acrylic. The issue with that is that the materials has different expansion coefficient, I heard.

I actually discussed this with a manufacturer; the answer was expense. materials would cost 5 to 10 times as much.

 

[phisquare]

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