Acrylic vs Glass

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purple

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
May 22, 2005
Messages
41
Location
australia
Which tank do you have and which do you prefer?? i love the look of the acrylic tanks and adore the rounded corners (well, i spose they arent corners if they are rounded :roll: ) but have only ever had glass tanks. Price has a little do with it but i am mostly put off the acrylics because they all seem to come with filter and heater built into the hood which worries me because of the cost in case of a breakdown.....
 
IMO, acrylic has only one advantage...weight. Other than that, it's not much better than glass. Acrylic can also be scratched fairly easily (decorations, gravel, etc.) which are hard to remove.
 
I would steer clear of acrylic. I found that it is harder to care for, that, and any algae eater has the potential to eat into the acrylic. especially plecos. I would go with glass. and it is possible to get a rounded side on a glass tank, but not corners.
 
Acrylic is actually clearer.. glass has a green tint to it..
The thicker the glass the more apparent the green tint is..
I prefer glass for the scratch resistance and the cost issue.. acrylic tanks are expensive
 
Most custom tanks tend to be acrylic though. The reason is the weight . . and I think that acrylic tanks don't have to be near as thick to hold the same amount of water. But not sure about that second part. Could be dead wrong.
Most custom tanks out there tend to be huge too. But, if I'm not mistaken, there are some companies out there that will treat their acrylic tanks to be scratch resistant. But I don't know about the whole pleco thing. Never heard that before.

Here's a company that does acrylic tanks:
http://www.seaclear.com/USFS-cascocorp.html

That black tipped reef shark is cool!

Here's another that does both glass and acrylic:
http://www.cityaquarium.com/
 
all glass has a natural green color you just need to look closer..
by the way its easy to see if the glass is 3/8 of an inch and thicker..
 
You can use a simple bathroom mirror to see the green tint better. Just hold something up to the mirror and compare color between the actual object and the reflected one. It's very faint, but you will see it.
 
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