[Rhinoman]

I'm planning a very large tank (5070g) and cleaning the viewing window will not be easy. Unless....the Mag Float type cleaners made for acrylic work well. Has anyone used these for a extended period of time on an ACRYLIC tank?

 

[Spar]

I'm planning a very large tank (5070g) and cleaning the viewing window will not be easy. Unless....the Mag Float type cleaners made for acrylic work well. Has anyone used these for a extended period of time on an ACRYLIC tank?

work pretty well but will scratch easy if any chunks of something (like sand, pebble fragments, etc) get stuck under it while you scrub.

May want to invest in one of the scraper attachments too for speed. Works 100x better on my acrylic reef tank, but then again I am scraping off coraline algae which needs the extra force. I will find the link and edit here and paste it.

In a tank you can dive in at least you could get in there easy and polish out any blemishes!

In scare of scratches I would highly recommend using the Plastic-end Scrapers over mag floats. Very time consuming though.

edit>>> having a hard time finding the link... on my work computer though. here is a DIY thread on it: http://www.dfwmas.org/Forums/viewtopic.php?t=21414&highlight=acrylic

 

[Rhinoman]

It's really scratching I’m worried about. Planted tanks don't need hard scrubbing, no problem there.

 

[BlueRam]

The Mag Float makes it REALLY easy to scratch a tank bigtime. A local club member was letting a kid tank sit. The kid found the mag float and went to work at the dirty part at the bottom.

I like using those fake credit cards blanks in the mail. Perhaps you can mount one to a stick.

 

[Blacksunshine]

I learned this the hard way. Mag floats and iron rich substrates don't mix. Eco.

 

[snafu]

i have a similar story to blueram... i've been using a couple on several acrylic tanks for many years (and still do). i used to just keep it in the tank on the rear side for convenient access and use. anyways, at a party at our house, a couple of young kids discovered the magnet and decided they wanted to help clean the tank while i was outside bbq'ing. argh! yup, gravel and acrylic definitely do not mix. now, i keep the thing locked under the cabinet. these were on smaller tanks (20, 40, and 60 gal) which are comparatively low cost, so i have no reservations using them on those. a 5k gal tank is a much different story.

basically, you just have to be careful when you initially 'connect' the two pieces making sure you haven't caught anything hard between them and when are you scrubbing near substrate. the same thing would hold true using any algae pad-type scrubber for acrylics tanks, whether it's handled or not.
-snafu