Acrylic vs Glass

[prospero31]

For those people that have both glass and acrylic tanks (cough...Ruth...cough), which is your preferred medium (including Starphire or however you spell it). I was really leaning to my next tank being acrylic until I heard about scratches getting coralline encrustations and a slow downward spiral of cleaning, scratches, polishing, algae gets in cracks etc....

[Ruth]

I think that both have their pros and cons. My glass tank is not starfire (or whatever that glass is) so I can't comment on that although I have seen tanks made of it and it is definately nice - no green tinge to the glass and as clear as Acrylic for viewing.
Lots has been written on the advantages of one over the other and I think everyone has to make up their own mind.
The thing that I don't like about glass is that it is so darn heavy to move - with big tanks anyway. Cripes it took 4 guys to move my 230g into my house. Acrylic is light and is also very clear for viewing.
I am a terrible aquascaper and that is one big advantage of acrylic over glass - if you drop a rock the acrylic is very forgiving - other that it will probably scratch. Did you know that a rock dropped quite by accident in a 20g glass tank can take out the whole front panel - quickly? Well it can!
I have some minor (very) scratches on my acrylic tank but it is my understanding that they are fairly easy to buff out. I never get too excited about cleaning my viewing panes of any of my tanks so and to date have not had too much of an issue with coralline growing on it. Once a month or so I take a razor (old credit card for acrylic) and clean it off.
Which do I prefer? Both - they each have their advantages and disadvantages. Right now I am having a heat issue with my large acrylic so am not liking that too much as it is going to force me to buy a chiller way sooner than I wanted to - but I have probably already lost the price of a chiller in dead and browned out coral. Man sometimes I'm stupid and slow to figure out what the problem is!!!!!!!:twised: