Acrylic tanks

URCHINS SCRATCH ACRYLIC!?!!!

i was litterally moments away from buying two of them. anyone else?

 

I have a blue tuxedo urchin, and lots of hermits in my acrylic never seen any scatches from them, and it's sooooo much clearer than any glass tank I owned before.

 

i have a urchin, i had 3 but 2 i found were starfish eaters (purple pin cushions )so they had to go. the one i kept eats only algae from what i have seen. i have never noticed any scratches from the urchins.

what i have seen scratches from is store bought scrapers made for acrylic. don't do it they hold sand and scratch. use a credit card, the softer the card the better. i have found my healthcare insurance card to be best. its a nice thin soft plastic, and its white! so it makes it easy to see what needs to be scrapped. when ever i get a card in the mail, i always think hum tank scraper???? also all the magnetic scrapper/ cleaners are bad news on an acrylic tank, i also learned this the hard way. stay away from them!
i buy the soft acrylic safe gloves made for cleaning and cut it up into pieces. never use the whole glove, your bound to get sand in it and scratch your tank. if i think i might have touched the sand , i throw the small piece out and grab another. wish i could find large pieces of that glove material to cut up, I'm sure it would be cheaper, but as it goes i have only cut up 2 gloves in 18 months time, so thats not bad. i wash the small pieces out by hand and feel it they have picked anything up.. if I'm in doubt, into the trash they go

 

i dont have a sand bed, im runnin bare bottom.

 

Any scratching issues with you? I just ordered a custom acrylic tank for my new DT and plan on running BB. I had not read anyone having scratch issues running a BB...unless it was user error. ;D

 

that should make it a bit easier cleaning for you.

 

Im BB also no issues here except for the 1st and only time I used a mag-float bad idea just 1 tiny piece of debris gets caught and it will scratch. I just use the inside water piece of it now and take it out everytime im done,clean it,and inspect it everytime I use it

 

i do the same for my mag scrapper, before i bought the tank (used) his rock-scape fell over and scratched the front, so that sucks, and i know not to use a razor blade in there, only hte plastic "acrylic safe" scrappers. my complaint is that the plastic scrappers are about 95% LESS effective on acrylic than the razors are on glass.

 

don't even use the plastic safe scrapers , they pick things up and scratch. no mag floats, no magnetic things at all. been there wish i had read what I'm telling you. think about it your rock will flake you will have things that can scratch, they will find a way to the floats. if your hand is in there you have more feel for what your doing. you can feel if somethings not right that could cause a scratch, and stop before it does a lot of damage

 

good advice, but your tank is only 12 inches tall right? real easy for you to just be wrist deep, (i love your tank btw, its amazing and i wish i had it) but i need a stepstool for my tank with a 12" scrapper.