Acrylic Tank Scratches Fix

[ldrhawke]

As hard as I have tried to be careful while placing coral in the tank, I have caused a number of pretty noticeable scratches on the inside of my 45G 1/2 barrel acrylic reef tank. To top it off, yesterday I really blew it. Trying to clean close to the gravel line, I picked up a few small pieces of coral on the cleaning magnet and really did some damage before I realized what was happening. I scratched the hell out of one corner.


I ordered an aquarium acrylic restoration kit yesterday, which is basically an array fine to finer wet dry silicon carbide sanding paper and a foam block. It hasn't been delivered yet.

Tonight I started thinking......how am I going to get at the inside of the tank wall. My tank is 30" high and only 18" deep. Not much room to work and tough to reach down and get at the lower part of the tank from the top with my hands and a sanding block. Then I got an idea, which I want to pass on, because it worked like a charm.

There had to be a better way. IDEA! Why not use the magnetic cleaning block, MagFloat, and jury rig the wet dry sand paper to it.

I took my MagFloat and measured it. Cutting a standard 9X12 sheet of 1500 grit wet dry sand paper I had in my workshop, and cut it in quarters, cover the face and leaving overlap up the sides. It fit the MafFloat almost perfectly. To attach it, I then took a piece of aluminum peel off adhesive tape, used for by air-conditioning contractor for assembling AC ducts. It is water proof. HomeDepot has it. I wrapped the tape and overlapped sandpaper paper sides and the open back of the MagFloat, adhering the wet dry paper solidly to the magnet .

I then tested it in a corner of the tank. I use the MagFloat just like I would normally clean the tank wall. At first while the wetdry paper was still fresh and a little coarse, it left some haze on the inside wall. After using it for about 30 minutes, the sandpaper was well broken it and was doing a lot better job and it left only a slightest haze and did a great job of cleaning up even the deepest scratches.

I felt like the Karate Kid...wax on... wax off, doing small 1/2" to 1" circles with the MagFloat. It took a couple of hours, but the tank almost looks like new. I sprayed the outside of the tank with Novus pastic detailer to lubricate and clean it at the same time with the felt of the outside magnet.

Tomorrow I will go down to the automotive paint store and get some 2500 to 3000 grit wet dry to attach to the MagFloat and go back over it to finish it. Even now it looks a 1000% better. Very few of only the deepest scratches can be seen and you have to look close.

The water got milky from the acrylic sanding dust. It isn't toxic and it didn't bother the coral or fish. It cleared up in about an hour.

Anyway...just thought I'd pass the tip on to you Acrylic tank owne