175 Bowfront questions.

[vtx-coley]

I'm looking to go big and I have a 175 used bowfront available. I've never had a BF, so I'm looking for the pros and cons of adding one of these to my collection. I'd rather go with a straight tank, but I'm not against changing things up.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[NewbieFish]

Pros:

-Cool Looking
-Things look magnified the further they are to the back


Cons:

-Slightly more difficult to clean the bowed glass if you have a wide scraper/wiper
-Things don't appear exactly as they are due to magnification
-If you dont have a bowfront stand the corners of a rectangular tank will stick out

 

[1oooop]

imma add a few pros and cons

Pros:

-Cool Looking
-Things look magnified the further they are to the back

Cons:

-expensive
-Slightly more difficult to clean the bowed glass if you have a wide scraper/wiper
-Things don't appear exactly as they are due to magnification
-If you dont have a bowfront stand the corners of a rectangular tank will stick out
-hard to light

 

[SuBXeRo]

those are really ythe pros and cons of a BF, personally i think they look awesome and are well worth the eoffort to take care of em and make em look good. The little bit of extra maintainence is worth it simnce u are doing alot already just because of tank size. Its abig tank, you could cut cost by making ur own stand which youcould design to definitly fit it, thats what i did for my 72 gal bowfront

 

[Mgamer20o0]

they are a pain in the but but others like them i my self would never have one.

 

[justahannah]

I have a 46 bowfront...I would have rather gone standard, but it was a good deal. Now that I have it, I'm quite fond of it. To address a couple of the above issues:

If you use magnetic scrapers vertically instead of horizontally, the curve doesn't interfere.

Lighting is just like a rectangular tank other than the scoop to the front making it a good place to stick shorter, lowlight plants (mosses, anubias petite). Even so, the water refracts the lighting throughout the whole water column, so visibly there's no difference in lighting from front to back. My fish look the same no matter where they are, the front curve doesn't look shaded at all.

In my opinion the magnefication effect isn't that prominent (my fish look the same size to me be it through the front or through a flat side). I have noticed it seems to be more noticable the smaller a bowfront is...might have something to to with the ratio of the curve to the length of the tank, with it being a more gradual curve the longer the tank is? (Im just speculating here on what I've visually observed with these tanks) So with a 175, I would think it would be quite negligable.

My cons are:
It's hard to avoid my camera's reflection if I'm shooting from the front (the curve reflects from every angle)

Similarly, it reflects a lot of glare from my windows in the morning because the curve catches the light even though they're at a 90 degree angle to the tank.

The stand issue mentioned above (although a curved stand was part of my deal so it can work out)

 

[vtx-coley]

Thanks for all the input. Just because of personal preference, I'm gonna pass on bowfront and look for a standard tank.