[Blackheart]

Has anybody noticed this? I tried recently looking for several different sized tanks from Seapora and Marineland. My main LFS couldn't get any one of them. Supposedly there is a glass shortage or something? I tried four or five different places which would least have one of the tanks in stock, but no luck.

Ugh. I am assuming this has something to do with COVID like everything. But man, this is crazy! Can't order tanks because of a glass shortage!

 

[Plinkploop]

Everything is hard to get ordered right now and most of it has to do with covid. Lol, they cut my postal route right out of the picture because of covid. My 20 person township now has to travel 45 minutes to the closest post office just to get our mail. I 100% agree this is highly inconvenient, but this too shall pass 😉

 

[jake21]

It depends. Things made over-seas or using parts from overseas are in fact difficult to order. However - custom made tanks - where the materials are domestic - are not that difficult to order. Of course they tend to be much more expensive base price. Having said that it is impacting everything (heard of chip shortages?) but a lot of raw materials (and therefore items made from them) are becoming scarce not to mention rapid rise in price.

 

[somewhatshocked]

I think this particular issue is likely just a regional distributor matter at this point. Especially with Seapora. They're Canadian and don't import as much glass from India and China as the larger brands like Marineland and All Glass.

The smaller tanks (under 100gal) I use the most are Seapora (formerly Deep Blue Professional) and almost always have to have the distributor for my region bring them in. Have had to do it twice since the pandemic started but I only had to wait a few days each time. There have been a few Seapora sales the past few months in the US & CA because of overstock, even. That's something that's rarely happened. A majority of their glass is manufactured in North America, so it's possible they are not impacted like the others. Their small high-clarity tanks come from the OEMs I'll mention below.

If you have other shops in your area you can work with to try to get the tanks you want, it'd be worthwhile to reach out to them.

There is a global glass shortage, due to sand shortage problems, but that's mostly with bottle manufacturers and scientific (borosilicate) suppliers surge producing vaccination vials. There hasn't yet been a standard quality aquarium glass shortage. Emphasis on yet. The only thing that's really been hit is high-clarity glass. It's been in higher demand because more people are staying home and starting up tanks. Lead times have slowed because of the length of time it takes to get a container from the OEMs in India and China to North America. There are only a couple high-clarity tank OEMs that produce for the current major brands like ADA and UNS, so that's part of the issue. Aquatop and the smaller/lesser known labels buy from the same source(s) but they don't move as much product and likely aren't impacted.

Another reason I don't think the glass shortage has hit the overall tank industry yet: Petco & PetSmart have had several dollar-per-gallon sales recently. I've bought a ton of those loss leader tanks just to have them on-hand the past few months.

edit: words are hard sometimes. ugh.