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Options for repairing badly scratched glass? It’s horrendous!

Greengeek

Member
Joined
27 Mar 2020
Messages
92
Location
Fareham, Hampshire
My tanks getting on for 8 years old now but it’s had a busy aaquascaping life and originally it was a reef tank. As a result of me moving live rock, getting sand caught in algae magnet etc the front glass has become a bit of a disaster…ok a lot.

What are my options to repair as removing and replacing the tank/glass mean ripping down the fake wall it’s built into. Which will cost more than a new tank easily.

A lot of the scratches are deep enough to get algae in and you can feel them with your finger nail. It’s bugging the hell out of me.

Can see it in photos too much, but my eye just lands on them everytime I look in it’s direction.

Is there any method this can be polished out?
 

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Is there any method this can be polished out?
Unfortunately not in position as you would need to polish it perfectly flat or it would distort your view massively with any imperfections. The only remedy I know for a scratched tank is replacing the glass. Most times it's just easier to buy a new tank rather than repair.
 
Unfortunately not in position as you would need to polish it perfectly flat or it would distort your view massively with any imperfections. The only remedy I know for a scratched tank is replacing the glass. Most times it's just easier to buy a new tank rather than repair.

Buying the new tank is the easy part and something I’d love to do. But the tanks built into a bespoke cupboard designed to look like a false wall but with loads off access. It’s all siliconed and panelled and the entire structure would have to be removed unfortunately.

I was hoping there would be another way, but looks like I’ll need to bite the bullet and redo the entire setup.

Thank you
 
Probably doesn't help if the issue is that's it's built in, but you could turn it around if the back glass is better. TBH though if you are going to need to rip a wall apart then at that point you'd want to be seriously considering a new one for the hassle.
 
If you do redo I would make thr new wall accessible while retaining the look. No silicon. In the 19 80s our terraced was to small , living room, for the tank so I cut a hole out in the brickwork and on the kitchen side put" fake" kitchen units in the kitchen for access and hide the back.Making some of you wall accessible but keep the look would make maintenance so much easier
 
It is quite easy, BUT very time consuming to remove scratches from glass tanks.

You need a kit like this from here.
https://glasspolishshop.com/

A certain "tat bazaar auction site" also have numerous kits, so might just be able to buy polishing disk and polish. I bought polish disk, wool pads, grits and polish from there.

Cerium oxide is the "doggy danglers" of glass polish, but not cheap.

I removed a large but really obvious scratch in our glass shower door (how it got there from showering ???). I used 2" wool pads attached to my drill. Started with silicon carbide 400 grit followed by 800, then 1200. Finally cerium oxide.

Lessons I learnt
  • You use batteries on your drill faster than you can charge the spares, so mains might be better.
  • If you hold the drill too long in one place you can see circular abrasion marks. An random orbital polisher would be nice !!!!
  • Takes ages and ages.
  • Use a different pad for each grade grit, despite washing between grits it was obvious some of the coarser grits were still left in the pad.
  • Did I say it takes ages.
  • Tried at first doing with door in place, but very "arm ache'y" trying to hold drill, hold bottle of water and ensuring grit/polish doesn't run away from the area you are working on. In the end removed door, took to garage and laid flat, much easier to keep things in place and no arm ache.
  • In the end was fine. If you looked where I had worked to could see the glass was not 100% flat, but hey ho no scratch.

As for fish tanks.

The best, easiest and less effort and fiddling on your part (and less arm ache) is to empty tank, and rotate tank so the glass pane you are working on is at the bottom. Place on a dark cloth so scratch can be seen when lit up using a torch to see how your work is going. Use dams made with modeling clay around the area you are working to keep the grit and water in in place. Job done.

Next best is work on empty tank, leaning in. Harder work than above, slower progress but can be done.

After that there is polish with water in tank. Lower water level, float cling film on the water, tape to glass, I also put kitchen towel on the cling film. Then polish away, hopefully keeping grit/polish out of tank water.

When I tried it on my tank, using the stuff I used on the shower glass, I couldn't get my drill and pad into the tank at right angles to the glass as drill was too long (did I say an orbital polisher would be nice !!), so I did it by hand, sponge pads and the drill polishing disk. It worked, only did one or two scratches before my arm fell off !!!. Very easy to convert a big scratch to loads of fine 400 grit scratches, which then takes ages to remove, hint put masking tape around the area you are working so you don't wonder off scratch. Not easy leaning into tank polishing by hand to get a convenient working position. Some grit and polish got into tank, fish didn't mind. Was it all worth it....possibly. You can't see my work when tank is full of water, but then the original scratches were only really visible from a distance at certain angles and when coloured green by algae living in the scratch.

So we wait your results in removing your scratches.
 
Nothing to add about the glass polishing but your tank looks amazing. Are those schoutedeni puffers? I'm assuming they got on with the discus? Do you have a journal or more pics of the tank?
 
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