Terrible Advice Tuesdays (T.A.Tues): My Aquarium is Made Of Glass…It Can’t Get Scratched
Terrible Advice Tuesdays: An aquarium made of glass cannot get scratched.
The rest of the story: Glass can get scratches in it. And glass is A LOT more scratch resistant than acrylic tanks. Unlike acrylic tanks that can have scratched polished out, removing scratches in glass is very hard and often times not worth the effort.
That being said, even though glass is harder to scratch than acrylic, you should still make sure your algae scrapers are free of debris like sand or gravel before scraping down the sides of your glass tank.
Bonus tip: Certain types of glass like low-iron starphire glass scratch easier than “regular” glass. Clients of mine who own starphire tanks all tell me the starphire panes scratch easier than the non-starphire panes.
Browse the Store! Questions?
I have a tunze 9002 skimmer and I can’t get it dialed in right so I was thinking about getting a reef octopus bh90. It’s a mixed 45g reef with a fluval g3 canister filter and a bashsea 4-12′ bio reactor any suggestions besides a drilled tank would be helpful. Plan on getting a drilled tank when I save up the $. Thank you
grate to know im getting a starphire glass aquarium built for me by A LRS did not know that thanks
I would stay away at all costs from using Tunze Magnets and only use floating magnets. I had a horror show with the Tunze and was never told to put cotton wool between the magnets and glass . My story is I had a flat mate helping me clean a 300 gallon glass wall dividing marine tank, ( As it takes two people) He pulled on the magnet from the outside and bang ! deep scratches right in the middle of my tank…. I could have cried ! No way of getting them out ! Magnet was well washed before use ? Straight into the trash with it ! € 160 euro magnet € 7,000k worth of stress and pain ! As thats how much I have spent on the tank that will never look the same ! Used it regulary with care .. Just shows bad design and bad luck dont mix ! Why they made it not to float ill never know ????? Shark magnet on the way now ! Tunze do make some good equipment but magnets a deffo no no ! One slip up and its curtains for your glass !!!!!!! Grrrrrr to you Tunze !!!!! You have been warned !
The problem with non floating magnets is that it wil get gravel stuck and you’ll have to pick it up by hand instead of just putting the magnet against the glass.
In fact where in the USA acrillic is much more common this is all well known in the EU where glass tanks are used in > 95% of all household tanks.
Altough if you got a scratch on the glass if you keep it really clean it’s hard to notice it, but algea tenst to stick/grow out of the scratched area.
Kevin, You can really notice it ! Especially when the tank is being run on blue led lighting for those hours ! Just like having a brand new sports car and it gets a bang its totally gonna wreck your head ! Clear instructrions , warnings and better support from a previous supplier and this would not have happened……
If I had a shop I would be saying non floating magnets are a total NO and wouldnt stock em ! I would also say glue down all live rock so a slip in the tank doesnt give a rock fall that scrathes the glass or worse cracks and brakes it !
I am facing this exact same thing right now . I got a sweet deal on a 120 from a buddy . and during the movie it got a couple scratches right in the middle . now i am reaserching like crazy to try and find a way to get them out . so far i have only seen a few ways . one is sanding it and then useing cerium oxide . the other might just be a gimick but this stuff called liqued glass .. any suggestions ? :/
If the star fire glass is more easily scratched whats the advantage? The difference in cost can be considerable. Is it that it is clearer to see through? Scratched my glass with a razor blade once, will never use one again.
Mark…people claim the clarity of starphire is superior to regular glass. If you look at a pane of starphire and non-starphire glass next to one another, the non-starphire pane will be clearer. However, I’ve never looked at a tank and said, “Wow! That’s so clear! It must be starphire!”. If someone didn’t tell you the glass was starphire, you’d likely never know. And once they did tell you its starphire, you still likely couldn’t tell a difference.
Any tips for keeping the mag float (water side ) clean of debris. I usually keep mine in the tank always but recently noticed little white specks growing on the cleaner, kinda lime what grows on the back pane of glass. Like little white pimples. I just noticed while cleaning my tank there are some scratches. Don’t know when they happened, and they are only noticeable when at a certain angle. It could have been caused by gravel stuck, but I’m usually very careful down low. So I’m guessing its from these little white specks that seem impossible to clean off the mag float. Any ideas.
hi mark Callahan
I am having problems with your website I have bought all the books but your website wont let me see any of the videos linked in the books or the books in the links don’t work thanks derek
i have had several bad experiences with magnet glass cleaners and scratches on my aquarium. I feel embarrassed to say that i didn’t even figure it out till about after a year of using a magnet cleaner with sand in it. My tank is now a guppy grow out tank. Off the scratch topic i would like to share an “Invincible Tank” story of a different type. Recently there was a terrible ice storm that hit my city. Days of non ending ice and snow. Trees with two foot diameters were coming down from the wieght of the ice and taking out power and streets. My house was one of the worst areas affected and my power was out from tues. at 10 am till sat. 2pm i have nine aquariums. “GULP” surprisingly due to work events also beyond my control i couldn’t do anything. they sat in a cold dark house the entire time. 50 degrees in house temp. 8 are freshwater and one is saltwater. The only relief was the help of a generator for about 8 hours in the middle of it all and thats it. so lights heaters and filters on for 8 hours the whole outage. Invincible tanks if you ask me. My losses consisted of one yellow headed sleeper goby and one harlequin rasbora. AMAZING Can you beleive my luck. no food heat or air stones of filtration for that long and only two casualties. don’t get me wrong i miss my goby who was absolutely gorgeous and my rasbora. but out of hundreds of fish coral and live plants i am so lucky. I am not advocating opting out of the technology but it makes me happy to know that they made it through and they are not the porcelin dolls they are sometimes made out to be. I will add i have no “touchy” fish or corals but i can’t say enough of how lucky i feel. Peace out and happy fishkeeping
Yeah….I learned the hard way how easily glass can scratch. I was horrified to find the whole front of my new 120gal is scratched up from the magnet cleaner. Now I just go in there with a scrubby and do it the hard way. I won’t use magnets again.