Glass or acrylic

I currently have a 46g acrylic tank from Sea clear and I have to say I love it aside from the top only have a few open places for a heater and moderate sized power-filter and holes for airline tubing. my 29g freshwater tank is a glass tank from Aqua Univision (recommended by my LFS) I like the openness of the glass tank because i can do plenty with it but i like the strenth of my acrylic tank.

What I'm getting at is later down the road after I own a house and can do with it what I please I want to set up a fairly large reef aquarium between 155-300g Not sure the size yet. I'm favoring the acrylic as it's strong practically shatter proof and at that size i wont need like 1 inch thick glass. But is there an acrylic company out there that makes an open topped tank? Or is that the downfall of acrylic tanks? Do they have to have that top to keep it from falling apart?

With my current tank there is a part where the light has to penetrate though part of the top of the tank which I'm sure reduces it's intensity especially as salt creep builds up.

What's a guy to do?

 

I think if you want a big acrylic tank, you're stuck with the crappy up top, I prefer glass as its way harder to scratch and as long as you don't bring your tank to baseball games, it should be fine. For my the only upside to acrylic is the cool rounded corners on some tanks, maybe one day it'll happen for glass...

 

flexing glass like that basically is like giving it a great big thin spot for all the pressure to push on, it weakens the glass for the most part, maybe a small like 10 gal tank could handle a bend but anything bigger and it would be disastrous.

I don't know I like the Look of acrylic, the not having to worry about silicon seals failing and leaking, not having to worry about the random baseball or object thrown at it. Who knows maybe i'll change my ways and get a glass tank but prolly nothing bigger then a 72 gal...

 

The reason may be because its more clear, but I have yet to see big tanks of acrylic, best place Ive found is passages.com I think their acrylic goes to the mid 200 and they can custom make you one

 

My buddy has a 330 gallon acrylic. It's a pretty sweet tank! The scratching kept me from going acrylic.

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A fellow on a local reef site in my area has a 400g acrylic tank. He also usus a 150g sump. I dont know if the sump is acrylic though.

 

Acrylic is cheaper. Just the weight of a 300gal glass tank is insaine. Keep in mind, after a certain size, the tank must be built onsite..

 

I have a glass tank that has some small scratches in it. Didn't realize it until I filled it all up and put the fish in it. Is there anything that will help fill in the scratches?

 

not really... some might claim ways to fix it, but on glass it will almost always cause viewing distortion in that spot.

 

Glass is alot cheaper than acrylic but then acrylic I think is stronger if you have a bump and is not likely to crack as easy,I always go with glass since I place mine in a relatively safe place