Polishing scratches on the inside of my acrylic tank?

[Steve_B]

I tried doing a search, but as usual it was too busy to work.
This is a truly fish only acrylic tank. Only fish, coral skeletons and reproductions. I pay very close attention to my inside cleaning pad. Well I guess I didn't pay close enough this last time and I now have scratches, some of them deep enough to feel with your finger nail. My scratch removal kit says that it can be done while the fish are in the tank. I can’t help but think those particles will cause problems getting caught in their gills.
This is a 225 W/ large fish. About an 8" Queen angel, big about 8" Naso, big tusk, big Niger and a few more. I would use my Mag float to hold the sandpaper on the inside and polish it until it isn't visible, it's pretty bad.
I have no place to house the fish if I have to tear it down, which would be a nightmare in itself.
Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance

[Steve_B]

bumpity bump

[beaglelax]

im no expert but i am sanding my 410 by hand empty, wet sand but from i read while trying to find acrylic polishing kit many articles said that it is safe to sand with the fish, i dont think there is a lot of info out there but if u look at this website at one of the pics they are in the aquarium sanding so i would say its find and i would also recomend that u sand by hand it will come out much better
http://etr-inc.com/photogallery.php
better yet i just thought these guys are experts in the field of sanding just give them a call and see what they have to say

[Steve_B]

beaglelax,

Thank you, that link looks like all I need

Steve

[Freed]

You can do it with your magnet and you can also do it full of fish or coral/inverts. Start with 400 grit and see where that gets you. I have always used wet/dry and start with 400 grit. Just did mine last night. Front of tank was covered in a sheet of coraline and could not be seen through at all except in a few small spots. Totally clear now. Start with 400 then go to 600, 800 etc.

[Freed]

I have the Hammerhead float magnet. Will work better than the Magfloat. I have one of those too but the Hammerhead works much better.

[Steve_B]

Thanks man, I was going to start with my magnafloat and see how it works in a small area. Those guys with the really expensive systems are way beyond a 6' tank with maybe 15" of scratches at the top end.


Anyway, thanks for the info as well,

Steve

[Steve_B]

Originally posted by Freed
I have the Hammerhead float magnet. Will work better than the Magfloat. I have one of those too but the Hammerhead works much better.

Freed,

What is a hammerhead?

It sounds like somebody I know, hee , hee

Are its magnetic properties stronger, or what is the advantage?
If it is substantially better, would I be likely to find it at a LFS?
My kit starts at 1,800 and works its way all the way to 12,000. I'll have to get some 400 and some in between wet sandpaper.
I can see my scratches from 2’ or more away. It really makes me sick to see what I’ve done.
Anyhow, will the sandpaper just hold to the inside magnet or does it need to be attached somehow? My kit says "can be used inside the tank with fish and water". It also says "However, the acrylic partials will contaminate the water and may not be compatible with your fish"

I think beaglelax information better and safer It just sounds like a much better solution because the stress on the fish may cause causalities or at the very least their dignity for having been tossed around. You do it with fish in the water, don’t have to go out an get a temporality 55 gallon tank (if that would even be big enough for a short while) tear down my 225, rinse the gravel, coral and tank, and god knows how I would even do it.
The site that beaglelax gave me info regarding how the acrylic participles just raise to the top and get washed down through the overflow, and caught in the canister filter. That is the exact setup I have. I have 2 Gorman Rupp pumps running all of the water through 2 Red sea canister filters W/Purigen. I'll switch over to carbon just because of its partical catching properties.

Yep, that’s the ticket

[Freed]

You can use whatever grit of paper you choose or their "special" kit supplies for way more money. BUT I'm letting you know that at 1,800 grit you will be sanding for a long time to get down to the depth of that scratch that you say you can see from two feet.

Using wet/dry sand paper is way cheaper.
The particles won't hurt the fish.
You don't have to take them out.
The particles will get skimmed out in your skimmer(may overflow depending on how concentrated the particles are).

I don't know who makes the Hammerhead magnets but they are much stronger than the Mag Floats.
You can use several rubber bands to hold the paper to the magnet.

You don't have to get your hands wet to use wet/dry paper on a magnet. Much easier to see what you are doing from "outside" the tank.

[Freed]

Look at my avatar. You couldn't see the clam two hours before that pic was taken. 400 grit paper later and no coraline and you can see him perfectly. The coraline was probably 1/16" thick at its thinnest all over the front of the tank. 400 will make the acrylic a bit hazy though. Work your way up to 1500- 2000 and you will be amazed.

[Steve_B]

Originally posted by Freed
Look at my avatar. You couldn't see the clam two hours before that pic was taken. 400 grit paper later and no coraline and you can see him perfectly. The coraline was probably 1/16" thick at its thinnest all over the front of the tank. 400 will make the acrylic a bit hazy though. Work your way up to 1500- 2000 and you will be amazed.

Yep, that looks perfect!

Did you just go 400 or work up to a finer paper, and if so do you have to get up really close and know what your looking for??

I know it would take forever with their "kit" I have one, but it comes in a nice blue box! My only question is that the heaver grit has the larger particles of acrylic that may get into their gills and cause problems. In my mind I figured very small "dust" as they refer to it, would just pass through like when I stir up my gravel to get the imbedded junk out to remove it before a water change. Remember, I’m old school, no real living rock, coral or gravel just a wet/dry a couple of high powered pumps, canister filters, crushed coral with either purigen or activated carbon or both. Oh, and I forgot, a Berlin skimmer that pulls a teaspoon of crap out a week

One other worry I have is that my queen angel is so picky and sensitive it could cause a problem. It had HLLE which was pretty much hole in the head. Its face was almost eaten away. I cured it with sponge in its diet. It wouldn’t eat sponge at all and the facial erosion kept getting worse. I came up with the idea of melting down the sponge and his favorite food, spurlina(?) and then refreezing. I had made huge water changes in the past in an effort to help to no avail. The sponge worked like a charm, and the erosion is almost 100% gone and reversed. The fact that I now have an RODI unit now may have helped as well, but that came after the sponge eating.

If I put in some kind of food it doesn’t like, it will start darting around and act like there is poison in the water, as everybody else is happily munching away. Our Persian cats are the same way, they start shaking their feet like their walking on hot coals.

I'm just about to go out and get some 400 and gradually work up to where I'm satisfied. BTW, that reference to 2' away is when it’s dark in the room and your sitting on a chair kind of looking up at the tank. It really does look like crap though, and there is NO WAY I’m going to keep looking at that.
I saw some guys here talking about the mag float thing and thought it was 100 xs better than what I have done in the past with my arm trying to do a fix on a 30" tall tank, which this one happens to be as well in height.
So anyway, is that really true that the sanded off particles float up to the top and not down to the base? Do you remember where you got the hammerhead? LFS?

And thanks for all of the good ideas

[Freed]

I got the hammerhead from someone here on RC. Don't know who. If the particles are hurting my fish they aren't acting any differently than they have before I've dont it this time and several times in the past. They still look at me like I'm a goof and their food supplier so as far as I can tell and I am sure others can post is that it does not hurt them at all. I am sure the particles of dust, coralline, acrylic are too large to get in their gills and cause any issues. No scratching, no breathing rapidly, no flipping over and doing dances. They will, however, disappear with the magnet going back and forth. At least that's what mine do. No worries.

[Steve_B]

I’m always fooling around there, and cleaning, my tang and queen eat of my hand and the rest are starting to come out as time goes by. Nothing scares that queen; it will come right up to my hand and study it.

Anyway, did you just use 400? If so, do you really have to look for the sanding marks or is it pretty hard to see. I'm going now, which I’ve been saying for an hour, to get some graduated grit wet sandpaper. Let me know how yours looks and the grit.

[Freed]

I used 400 to take the coralline off. The 400 will create a hazy look to the acrylic. I then used 600 grit, 800 and then 1500. I still need to use 2000 but right now you wouldn't know it if you didn't know what you were looking for. You will be able to tell where you have used the 400 and also the others as you go. The finer the grit the clearer the acrylic will get and so on and so forth.

[Freed]

When you sand move left and right or up and down. Circular motion will leave swirl marks that you won't like and that will affect pictures if you take any with flash etc...

[Steve_B]

Originally posted by Freed
When you sand move left and right or up and down. Circular motion will leave swirl marks that you won't like and that will affect pictures if you take any with flash etc...

Dig, at least the little blue box came with instructions. I'll have to go back and read it again, but I believe it says the first pass should be in one direction and the second in the opposite direction and so on until it is finished.

[Marc Daniels]

Steve_B

Acrylic is an inert property, so it will not have any sort of toxic result on your water quality. As far as the particulates that get "sanded" off into your water it would be no different to the fish than the sediment that is stirred up on the reef due to storm activity. It is a slight, and very small scale irritant...that is all. Your filtration will quickly remove it within hours.

Just make sure that you watch your protein skimmer as it can go crazy until the particulates are removed and it can overfill the collection cup in a hurry.

No matter if you do it by hand, or use a magnet just be careful to not over sand in a single area. You can cause a concave in the acrylic and it will result in warping the viewing pane in that area..which then makes looking through it sort of like those little "Things may be close than they appear mirrors".