Glass cleaning techniques

rakabos

rakabos

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Hi guys

I left the hobby a while ago, highly frustrated. Bought a brand new tank, and ended up scratching the glass unknowingly. I was trying to be as careful as possible but still saw new scratches appearing.

So my question is how do you guys do it?
 
it comes down to regular maintenance and being fairly pedantic about cleaning routines, clearing the hard algae sooner than later is easier sooner than later. It's as easy as a one of the green pot scourer that you can tear off of the sponge, let it soak in normal water, the green part, and then just scrub lightly when you notice small dots of either the green, purple or pink coralline.

Unfortunately this requires you submerging your arm in the water, this can be solved by either a full-arm length glove or if you don't mind your arm getting wet it'll take time and a bit of elbow grease. Trick is to scrub lightly, same way you would wash your car, obviously the green would dull the clear coat on your car, but glass is a fair amount more resilient.
 
Stanley blade and squidgy. Since my magnet gets hold of those hard white things that grow on the glass and scratches the tank
 
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I'd take serious caution on the stanley blade, I think this is what I recall Martin using in the first place, that scratched the glass, just remember starfire/low-irone/low-fe glass is a lot softer than normal glass, and the angle or error on the blade is very small. I've used the blade a few times myself and have only got away with a clean maybe once or twice without scratching my glass. Maybe I'm just heavy handed..
 
zippy said:
it comes down to regular maintenance and being fairly pedantic about cleaning routines, clearing the hard algae sooner than later is easier sooner than later. It's as easy as a one of the green pot scourer that you can tear off of the sponge, let it soak in normal water, the green part, and then just scrub lightly when you notice small dots of either the green, purple or pink coralline.

Unfortunately this requires you submerging your arm in the water, this can be solved by either a full-arm length glove or if you don't mind your arm getting wet it'll take time and a bit of elbow grease. Trick is to scrub lightly, same way you would wash your car, obviously the green would dull the clear coat on your car, but glass is a fair amount more resilient.
Click to expand...

Do you use the soft are rough part of the sponge? I see a lot of shops use the soft part
 
rakabos said:
Do you use the soft are rough part of the sponge? I see a lot of shops use the soft part
Click to expand...

not 100% sure we are on the same page, usually the sponge comes with the green part attached, from plasticland/Pick n Pay, I tear the sponge off the green portion, throw the sponge away and soak the green bit. I then scrub with either side of the green thingy/scourer.
 
zippy said:
not 100% sure we are on the same page, usually the sponge comes with the green part attached, from plasticland/Pick n Pay, I tear the sponge off the green portion, throw the sponge away and soak the green bit. I then scrub with either side of the green thingy/scourer.
Click to expand...
Yeah i got your meaning, thanks. Lets see if im brave enough to start again :)

thx for the input
 
Flipper also works like a charm. Vert low risk of a scratch if you using the scrubber side unless you pick up a piece of gravel or something like that between the magnets

Blade side needs a bit more care but works like a bomb on coralline.

Just be careful you don't accidently drop it and bend the blade like I did. Gave my front pain a nice big scratch because I bent the blade, so slight you can't even see the bend but good enough for a 15cm gash. Ouch.

Moral of the story sooner or later you going to put a scratch in your glass.
 
I am using a algae scrapper from JBL witch works wonders,no scratches on my front panel yet.
 
credit card works but
for the tougher small algae I bought a scrapper that attached to a long plastic holder it work wonders for me .
I will take a pic n post tomorrow .
but it from a LFS
 
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