fishkeeping&plantedtanks101

materials

Material

Acrylic

 This material is stronger than glass, provides some temperature insulation, and weighs less than the same size tanks made of glass.

If you live in a particularly cold environment, then you will find that using an acrylic tank is preferable because it does a much better job at regulating temperature and doesn’t need as powerful a heater. 

You will not have to deal with refraction when you buy an acrylic tank. Unlike glass tanks, any distortion of the appearance of your fish is going to be very minor. If you want to include an overflow system for your fish tank, you can easily drill a hole in an acrylic tank to add this system.

Glass

Glass fish tanks are easy to find and rely on a strong sealant as well as plastic frames to give the fish tank the support and shape that it needs. The problem with glass is that it tends to be very brittle and can easily break. Even though this is a common problem with glassfish tanks, it is usually the sealant that fails first.

Glass fish tanks cost significantly less than acrylic tanks do and tend to stand up to scratches a lot better. While the price difference between these two materials is very obvious in smaller tanks, as the size of the tank increases, the price difference tends to go away.

Glass tanks tend to weigh as much as four to ten times more than a same-size acrylic fish tank, which means that not only do you need to be stronger to be able to lift and move the tank but you also have to have a very strong and sturdy frame or piece of furniture where you can house the fish tank.

It is difficult to make glass into interesting shapes so you are generally going to find glass tanks that are square or rectangular. Any time that glass is curved, it will affect the appearance of the fish in the tank so curved glass tanks are incredibly rare. This refraction is more pronounced when the glass is thicker.

Acrylic vs low iron vs regular glass

ACRYLIC

-best in clarity

-nearlyindestructible

-easily scratch

-weight less than glass

-costly

LOW IRON 

-next to acrylic in clarity

-doesn’t scratch easily

Low to mid-grade low iron

Clarity can be worse than regular  glass depending on manufacturer

REGULAR GLASS

Green tint when light is off. To remove green tint, get high color temperture LEDs or light with some blue LEDs in them

-reasonably price

LOW-IRON GLASS

Light transparency can be improved by up to 6% simply through the modification of iron content in glass. Low-iron glass provides maximum brightness and clarity with a higher visible light transmittance than traditional clear glass. Applications requiring an unrestricted view can see tremendous improvement with the use of low-iron glass over more traditional options. Low-iron glass achieves these optimum levels of clarity thanks to its iron levels; light transmission levels will virtually never dip below 90% with low-iron glass.

Light transmission is not perfect in low-iron glass, though thinner cuts of low-iron glass will boast more impressive light transmission levels than those that are thicker. One should also consider that between two cuts identical in thickness; however, low-iron glass will always win out over traditional clear glass in terms of light transmission.

Is low-iron glass worth it for aquarium?

Unless it's a walk-around tank, just use it on the front, and you can save some money. And yes, it's worth 

Is Low-Iron Glass Stronger? While made from different materials, low-iron glass and clear glass have about the same strength. With additional fabrication, both commercial glass types easily withstand heavy, blunt impact