BOWFRONT vs. FLAT

It is mostly personal preference....but a few cons I can think of are:

Bow fronts give kind of a distorted view because of the curved glass...compared to looking straight in like a flat front tank.

The bow fronts can be harder to find different kinds of lighting and/or hoods to fit them if you want to upgrade later down the line.

Bow fronts give many people head and eye aches because of the distortion.

I think it is worth getting the larger, rectangular tank for the same cost.

I like the look of the bowfronts very much, i have two of them in my living room. They are more challenging to photograph and to upgrade lighting but they fit better with my furniture (lol). I use rectangular tanks everywhere but the living room.

I have a corner/bow front tank and I love it. But I do agree that it does distort the fish if you look at if from different angles.

From an aesthetic point of view the differences are very subjective. As mentioned above the curvature of the glass can cause distortion, but the smooth look of the tank can be very apealing. From a functional stand point, rectangular tanks are a more efficient use of space. The curved foot print of a bow leaves open areas of floor space that are basically useless for any other purpose while a rectangle fills the area. This can allow you to use a larger tank in the space you have available. In addition to this, some have complained that cleaning the curved surface can be a pain, but I believe this is more of an issue in a SW tank where coraline algae must be scraped off.

Corner bows tend to have much more curvature than "regular" bows do, hence more distortion. I don't notice any distortion in my regular bow unless I'm looking at it from a very oblique angle (waaay off to a side).

I had a 36 bowfront. I loved it. It did get a little nutty when I was moving plants around because of the distortion looking through the curved glass, but it was gorgeous.

Yes, my corner tank can be a pain to clean. I have a magfloat glass cleaner and I have to keep it vertical to clean the front glass.

I have a bow front and the only area where the distortion is really visible is at the front corners because the curvature is tighter. Even so, I think it still looks better that looking at a silicon corner with algae that you can't clean away. The main con I can think of is to try to find or make a hood that will fit. If its a kitted tank that comes with the hood and lights, that problem is solved. The main worry I have with mine is that there is so little space to access the tank from the top, unless the hood is removed completely. This can be a pain for decorating / maintaining. Corner bows I looked at have much smaller radius of curvature and the distortion are much more visible.