# Glass aquarium has scratches but the tint has me worried



## robsworld78 (Jan 31, 2012)

Hi, my friend recently got a 187g glass tank which when we viewed it we thought it was a beauty. Couldn't see any scratches so we thought it was a great deal. Got it to his house and filled it with water and it still looked ok but then we put the lights on and oh ooooo, it was not that beautiful after all. There are lots of fine surface scratches all over the tank.

I'm not worried about trying to buff the scratches out and I'm sure they will come out cause its impossible to feel them so they are super fine.

What concerns me is the tint on the glass and leads me to my question.

If I get the Cerium oxide (jeweler's paste) and buff them out will I buff out the tint with it?

Is the tint in the glass or on the glass? I'm pretty worried if we buff the tint will go too?

Does anyone have experience with this? I've read lots on it and many have good results however no one says if it was tinted or not.

Thanks


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## Rod4Rodger (Jan 2, 2012)

The bluish green color is the glass. As for scratches, I bought a 240 gallon tank from glasscages.com about two years ago with the starfire glass. It is really clear and has not yellowed. The first day I set it up I used a soft scrub pad to take the glue off the front and it scratched it! I was shocked, and thank goodness it was only a small area, but I am very interested in any asnwers that may take them out.


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## robsworld78 (Jan 31, 2012)

Thanks, that confirms what the aquarium people in the city say, I should be good to buff.

We're doing it on Friday so I'll let you know how it goes, I'll try and get before and after pictures if I don't forget.


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## snail (Aug 6, 2010)

What does the tint look like? Are you talking about the blueish-green color? I agree it is probably just the color of the glass. All glass has a slight color but it's usually too thin to see. For such a large tank the glass has to be much thicker than normal so any color shows much more. It's always a good policy to try out anything new on one of the least noticeable corners first in case it goes wrong.


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## Rod4Rodger (Jan 2, 2012)

I will be looking for your post on how the buffing works out. If you can, please take some before, after, and maybe during, pictures.

On a 240 1/2" is the minimum. Mine is 5/8". I paid the extra for the starfire because I had an older 110 gallon with 1/2" glass that was bluish-grees and I wanted it to be really clear. It shows in the thinner glass, but not as much.


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

Take your time with the buffing, to fast and your not going to get it done. I spent a week buffing mine out.


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## snail (Aug 6, 2010)

Rod4Rodger said:


> I will be looking for your post on how the buffing works out. If you can, please take some before, after, and maybe during, pictures.


I'd be interested too. I have a tank that I'd like to buff some scratches on.


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

snail said:


> I'd be interested too. I have a tank that I'd like to buff some scratches on.


Fine scratches is the only thing its going to take out. Its tedious work. If you have deep scratches, you have to go the sanding route. And that takes forever.
GLASS POLISHING


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## robsworld78 (Jan 31, 2012)

Yeah its a blueish green color and now I'm not worried about taking it off. The glass on this tank is 1/2" the minimum is 3/8" so lots of extra glass available to grind. I get some pics when polishing.

Reefing Madness you said not to fast or it won't get done, what do you mean by that? Do you mean don't spin the disc to fast? What did you use to polish your tank was it cerium oxide? What material was you pad and what tool did you use?


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

I used a oxizidation removing polish. Once you get started you'll know what I'm talking about. Its just not going polish up as fast as you think it will. Unles your going to grind (hard sand) it off, in which case you'll be doing it in sections, and at different degrees of sanding. I was using a 2 stage polisher on high speed, for a week.


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## robsworld78 (Jan 31, 2012)

I'm sure just the polishing will clean it up and yeah I'm not scared of work, I like a challenge. 

Did you do the whole tank, how bad was it and did it turn out brand new looking?


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

I had some really bad ones that I didn't care to spend a month sanding out. The hairline scratches came out just fine. Brand new, no, it still left behind some oxidization that I just couldn't get out for some reason. I did the whole 240g tank, inside and out.


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## robsworld78 (Jan 31, 2012)

I wonder why it left oxidization, maybe cerium oxide won't do that. I checked out your pics of the tank and can't tell so it must not be that bad? 

What look do you like better, scratches or oxidization?


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

Scratches. I can see the oxi on the glass from the side when the sun hits the tank in the morning, other than that, no one would notice, I know its there. The scratches aren't a big thing to me, they grow coralline algae in them, thats the only thing drives me nuts.


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## robsworld78 (Jan 31, 2012)

Well didn't get a chance to polish today, won't happen till next weekend now, I'll update then.


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

*pc


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

This is the extreme scratch removal:
Glass Technology glass scratch removal demo - YouTube


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## robsworld78 (Jan 31, 2012)

That's pretty good, here's one I found the other day.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/guKl9mseR44" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


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## robsworld78 (Jan 31, 2012)

The learning process is now over and I'm ready to do some serious damage on the tank tomorrow.

Yesterday me and my friend started the task, we decided to do a complete buff on the front glass inside and out, that would give it a good clean so we could see all the scratches. If your glass is all stained with that corrosive look I don't think there's anything better than this method to clean it up, sure beats using vinegar.

First we cleaned the glass with pure bleach to make sure nothing was on it to scratch the glass, then we spent about 2 hours buffing the front glass, inside and out. Once it was buffed we found more scratches then we wanted to and sad thing is a few we can feel so this won't work for them. 

After cleaning we decide we would now give a scratch a serious go, there was a long scratch on the outside of the tank about 8-10in long. It was more than hairline, you could see it easily when the lights were turned on. 5 hours later 100% gone! *w3

During the process my friend had his doubts but I always knew it would disappear and surely it did. The time it took isn't valid though because we were learning during that 5hour process. The first couple hours we did nothing or basically nothing, because we always had the glass to wet but as we got into it we noticed we could feel something between the glass and the disc when the cerium oxide was more like a paste consistency. When it was like that on the glass it was actually grinding away but when it was wet wet no grinding was really happening. I would like to believe the scratch we got out would have taken 2 hours max if we started the with the technique we ended with. 

Tomorrow I'll have a more valid time frame because now I know what I'm doing. We did get some pics I just don't have them with me at home, I'll get them tomorrow and post a bunch. There's no oxidation either, it cleaned up nicely.

Here's a list of what we used.


bleach to clean the glass
cerium oxide to polish the glass
5" foam bonnet for polishing
5" plastic disc for drill
variable speed drill
spray bottle to add water to glass

The foam bonnet isn't ideal because you can't get the rpms very high on the drill because you get to much spray. We were maybe spinning at 500 RPM's at the fastest times. Nice thing about that is much less chance to build heat and break the glass, at no point could we generate any heat, we tried. When I was getting supplies I was told that foam wasn't great because of spray and was told the best is a "felt bob" apparently the felt holds the liquid better and doesn't cause a spray so you can spin fast however that's when you will build heat so I'm sure one has to be more careful with felt. We were going to get a felt bob but it was $40 so we got the foam instead for $10.

In my opinion its definitely worth doing, I've done a lot of things and I rate this as being "easy" you just need patience.

I'll post some pics tomorrow, hopefully I have some nice after shots too. *pc


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## Rod4Rodger (Jan 2, 2012)

Robsworld78, you rock. THANKS. I am going to try this on my starfire as soon as I can get the supplies and after I see your pics.


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## robsworld78 (Jan 31, 2012)

No problem, definitely worth doing for you're tank, especially since its outside the tank, easy access. I'll definitely post some pics for you.


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## robsworld78 (Jan 31, 2012)

Picture time! 

Well yesterday me and my friend got 2 more hours of work done on the inside of the tank. Before starting we marked all the scratches with a red marker on the outside so we knew where they were and then spent 2 hours buffing a patch about 2' x 2'. There are lots of scratches within that area so a single scratch didn't nearly get 2 hours of buffing however I'm happy to report 5 scratches did disappear.

Quite a few scratches you can feel but we're going to put in the time to take them out as well. Taking pictures of the scratches turned out hard to do because of the lighting and camera but we got some of them.

*Here's what we're working with.*


*Here's most of the scratches outlined, didn't do them all. The blue lines where suppose to be deep scratches but it wall all done by eye not feel and it turns out some that looked deep weren't and vice versa.*


*Here's a few scratches*


*This area is bad and quite a few can be felt*


*This is when we did the long scratch on the outside of the tank which came out completely. Notice how it looks runny on the glass, in my opinion that is to runny, it should be pastier.*


*This is how it should look, in my opinion, now its like a toothpaste and you can actually see it between the glass and the foam bonnet. Now its actually grinding away at the glass*


*This is good too but not enough material on the glass*


*Inside look*


*when we took a break and it dried, all that is cerium oxide and wipes away clean.*



The cerium oxide goes a long way, especially once you get a technique going. When we mixed it I put about 1 teaspoon in a pan and about 1/4 cup water maybe a little less. We added small amounts to the bonnet and then spray the glass with water as it dries out. When it dries out it looks like all the cerium oxide is gone but once re-wet it comes back. The key to making it last is by having it more like toothpaste when you spin the buffer. Then you get no spray and nothing gets wasted. The first night we had a lot of spray off and wasted quite a bit but day 2 not much was used.

The cerium oxide when mixed looks like milk but as it dries out on the glass by buffing it turns to a paste, then the key is to spray just enough water to keep it a paste and not runny like the pic above. 

I'm guessing using a foam bonnet is probably the safest way to go if you have no experience like me and my friend, reason I say this is because you can't get enough speed to heat up the glass. Day 2 we where able to run the drill at a faster rpm because the cerium oxide was thicker and didn't spray however we noticed the bonnet starting falling apart when we went fast. I'm guessing because heat was building and the pad starting falling apart, so we slowed it back down and no more damage has been done to the bonnet. I was told using a felt bob you could get the rpms up which is probably a good thing because you will buff out the scratches quicker however you will get heat on the glass and possibly break it. As I said I recommend the foam just for the fact you can't build heat without wrecking it.

I'm going tomorrow to do a few more hours, I might have more pictures but will definitely post completed pictures. The 6 scratches we did remove you could never tell because there are so many that what sucks, they all have to go or its almost pointless.

I think I've convinced my friend its worth the time since he already spent around $1500 for everything so it better look good when done and with all those scratches it doesn't. Tank and oak stand cost $800.


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## snail (Aug 6, 2010)

This has turned into a really useful thread, thanks for every ones input.


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