Glass vs Acrylic

[rottn]

Awww the age old debate!

I was in the same dilemma once - glass or acrylic? We are looking at getting a 300g tank, so weight was a very important factor to me.

However, my hubby doesn't care about the weight (I'm sure he will when he has to actually deal with it! ) He said from day one that we would go glass. That in his opinion, there is no debate.

You've got some excellent pros & cons above.

I do know that with glass tanks, they now offer a type of glass called starphyre - which removes the "green" tint that glass will often give off, and make viewing much more clear and pleasurable (like acrylic is). Pretty sure you would pay extra for the starphyre glass, but that is what we'll be looking into when we're ready for our big tank.

HTH

[danny254]

IMO the green tint is pretty much unnoticible but my tank has 3/8 inch thick sides and your 125 might have 1/2 or something but I still dont know if you would even notice it. BTW I have had acrylic tanks and just about every time you touch them they scratch. I havent really compared my acrylic tanks clarity to my glass tanks clarity but I know there would not be to big a difference and IMO If you got glass you would not notice the greeness hardly at all.

[pro_builder]

I built my acrylic tank, over a year ago and have no scratches in it at all. You really have to take your time when cleaning algae of the tank. I use a Credit Card to do this.
As for the rock slides, you don't want them anyway.
I would hate to go to a glass aquarium again, they are too heavy and hard to get plumbing into, with out drilling. It is much easier to drill a acrylic tank, therefor easier to setup in my opinion.
Just my 2 cents

[apfelbaum666]

I just recently upgraded my tank from a 60 acrylic to a 125 glass. Here is my view. The acrylic is clearer, more modern looking, and for me the most important part was a great thermal insulator. My new glass tank doesn't insulate well at all. I already have 2 to 4 degree temp changes a day and we haven't even hit summer yet. I'm worried that my temps will skyrocket. I never had to worry about that with acrylic. Even when the interior temp hit 90 my tank was a solid 80. Aside from that. Its really great not to worry about scratching it as much, I can easily use my magnet again. Also, the cost difference can be huge. HTH

[jlserr]

Glass.

Acrylic is lighter but it will be in a stand, not in my arms , my tank+stand+water+rock may weight 250kg... In my case (42 gal), the glass tank would be only... no more than 20kg 10% of the weight... Acrylic would avoid about 10kg... less than the 5% of the total weight. 250kg vs 240kg

Glass is beautiful, always clear, always sharp (like canon ) But Acrylic... hardly

JMHO

[Lan_t]

I would say, if you're going with 200g+, than use acrylic. You can fix the scratches with "scratch kits" but it's still a
PITA.

[danny254]

Ive tried the seaclear scratch remover and they dont work worth s#$t, a big waist of money IMO, but maybe a different brand is better but it still kind of sounds like a too good to be true kind of thing

[Aquaholic]

glass is winning so far!!!!!!

[originalguest]

I have an acyrilic and I was pretty disappointed when I saw how easily it would scratch. Also avoid the reinforcing frames on the top. Simply a bugging obstruct to work freely with the tank.

[KRussell]

I have a 75 gal acrylic but I voted for glass because if I could do it over again I would buy a glass. After 5 years I have way too many scratches.