Cleaning acrylic aquariums

[unibob]

Anyone know anything other then the "special pads" pet stores sell that will work cleaning inside of acrylic tank?

 

[Duke]

i use dollar store magic erasers since day one on my acrylic tank.. works better than anything i've tried. i never use a mag float

 

[unibob]

I read this earlier, seems so iffy coming from the cleaning isle. Do you use just the original ones?

 

[reeffreak]

I think there was a thread on the magic erasers a while back , i will see if i can dig it up and post the link im pretty sure theres a few peeps that are using the magic eraser .

http://www.thefragtank.ca/forum/index.php?topic=1691.msg12234#msg12234

 

[reeffreak]

im sure byuing the scrub pads from Big Als or Pet Smart will work fine aswell , I know petsmart had them on sale for like $2 last week , i grabbed one for my frag system because there no sand so the bottom gets covered , they are also on long handles . HTH

 

[Duke]

no those pads and anything aquarium related suck to get stuff off the acrylic safely, anything "scrub" will scratch acrylic.. i've used dollar store magic erasers since i started my tank 8 months ago and have had 0 issues, i've probably gone through 100 of them. there only a buck for 2 of them at any dollarama store. use the white side to scrub not the blue. also while your there.. they have microfibre cloths for a 1$ right by those erasers. thats the only thing i use on the outside of the tank, just make sure you dont use windex or anything like that on your tank as it will cloud the acrylic.

 

[Duke]

before the magic erasers i would take one of those microfibre cloths and cut a small square out of one and use it on the inside of the tank.. let me tell you its worse than waxing a car, my arms would burn 2 minutes after i started and it would take like 2 hours, Then i read the magic eraser thread on reef central as was kinda skeptical like you are but man im tellin ya.. its the way to go..

 

[unibob]

Just did it, and she's clean.

 

[AdInfinitum]

I use micro-fiber cloths (dollar store) on the outside and Mag floats with the special Acrylic replacement pads (Big Al's) just be careful when you go close to the sand bed that you don't pick up any grit and keep on scrubbing.... for anything stubborn there is nothing better than a couple of pieces of scrap acrylic joined at 90 degrees, makes a razor sharp scraper that will not mark the acrylic and will take any growth off. Important with the mag floats to put a piece of microfiber cloth between the outside handle piece and the tank as the felt on the mag float is not thick enough to prevent the plastic rim from making contact and it will scratch the acrylic. 

P.S. I have had my 200gal acrylic for around 20 years and have only buffed it once, and that was because it had been in storage for a few years.