Cleaning acrylic tank & sump with freshwater???

R

raseii

AC Members
Mar 13, 2005
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Hi,
I found a great deal on a 100 gallon Acrylic tank that has an in-tank sump for sale, it comes with stand, hood and extras for $125 which I thought was a great price. Kind of too hard to pass up. Anyways, they said it has alot of algae and salt inside that needs to be cleaned up. How would I go about cleaning an Acrylic tank without scratching it all up and would it be safe for freshwater afterwards? Another question I have is about the in tank sump... I am not familiar with that. What does it do? I know I will be using other means of filteration, but I am not familiar with the sumps. If anyone could help me out, I would love to hear from you.
 
It depends on the depth of the scratches. The aquarium acrylic repair kits are not adequate for an aquarium that size. I think the cheapest way would be to get an electric sander and go call around to the wood working shops for wet sandpaper. The deeper the scratches the courser you would need. Probably start around 3000 to take down the bigger scratches and then slowly progress to around 15,000-20,000 grit. Anything about 15,000 will create a mirror.

*Remember this is a wet sanding operation.

For minor scratches you can get some liquids that will fill them in.
 
raseii said:
Hi,
I found a great deal on a 100 gallon Acrylic tank that has an in-tank sump for sale, it comes with stand, hood and extras for $125 which I thought was a great price. Kind of too hard to pass up. Anyways, they said it has alot of algae and salt inside that needs to be cleaned up. How would I go about cleaning an Acrylic tank without scratching it all up and would it be safe for freshwater afterwards? Another question I have is about the in tank sump... I am not familiar with that. What does it do? I know I will be using other means of filteration, but I am not familiar with the sumps. If anyone could help me out, I would love to hear from you.
Click to expand...
They sell scratchies at the pet store that is used for acrlyic tanks. Do not take sandpaper to your tank, you will be very sad.
And do not worry, you can use bleach to clean your tank, just rinse it very well when you finish. I had this done to mine and it worked fine for years.
Also scratches on the inside do not really show up to well if it does get scratched. And always use a soft cloth cleaning the outside of the tank and plus they do sell polishes for the tank.
 
Thank you. I havent personally seen the tank yet, so I dont know if there are even any scratches on the tank. I will have to check that out when I look at it. thanks for the information though so I will know what needs to be done if there are any scratches. Do you know how I would go about cleaning the algae and salt off ? What do you use to clean these acrylic tanks so they DONT get scratched up?

Thank you
 
Go to your local fish store and get the regular acrylic tank scratchie pad for a few bucks and then just wet it and it should take the algae off. Also fill the tank up and place some bleach in there, and I do mean rinse out very well when you are done.
 
Sorry raseii,

Don't know why I read scratches when you are only trying to get off salt and algea. Be carefull with the salt. It can scratch the acrylic.

Tricksterpup, are you sure bleach won't yellow acrylic? I have never tried it. I have however sanded a 20 gallon acrylic and it came out better than when it was new. Took around 8 steps because I had to get out some deep scratches from my kids.
 
go take a look at it first, i had some build up that is almost impossible to take off and just using paper towels on acrylic will give it tiny scratches, so scrubbing it would really put some swirls onto it. most of it isnt visible when its filled and it just depends on how picky you are i guess.
 
Thank you all. I know nothing about Saltwater, but is it possible to be able to run water over the area to remove the salt? I am wondering if the salt would desolve in the hot water or is that not possible? I would hate to scratch it up try to scrub the salt off. I will be getting pictures of it tomorrow so I can look at it before I decide because they live about an hour away from me, but he said that the inside of the tank was encrusted with algae and salt and to me that sounds like there is alot of it. Would hot water do the trick with the salt? Or for those who have saltwater tanks, do they have anything special to remove that salt where you dont have to scrub?
Thanks
 
raseii said:
Thank you all. I know nothing about Saltwater, but is it possible to be able to run water over the area to remove the salt? I am wondering if the salt would desolve in the hot water or is that not possible? I would hate to scratch it up try to scrub the salt off. I will be getting pictures of it tomorrow so I can look at it before I decide because they live about an hour away from me, but he said that the inside of the tank was encrusted with algae and salt and to me that sounds like there is alot of it. Would hot water do the trick with the salt? Or for those who have saltwater tanks, do they have anything special to remove that salt where you dont have to scrub?
Thanks
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NO, NO, NO.... Don't put hot water in an acrylic tank. :)
Fill it up with water and leave it for a few days, that should soften the salt and algae up, then you could clean the tank while it still has water in it. If it has calcium build up then all I can suggest is elbow grease and an acrylic tank cleaning pad, but because of the nature of calcium it might leave scratches(cant be helped). :) When cleaning my tanks I use a straight edge piece of acrylic, but sometimes if a rock or something similar gets in between it it will scratch. If you are really worried about scratching use some soft filter wool that will do fine.
 
tricksterpup said:
They sell scratchies at the pet store that is used for acrlyic tanks. Do not take sandpaper to your tank, you will be very sad.
Click to expand...

Scratch removal kits contain sandpaper or other abrasives. Thats how they work, removing material surrounding the scratch.
 
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