[Roady]

I have some scratches on the outside for my acrylic aquarium and I looked up some polishing kits yesterday, but I wanted to ask you guys first. Does anyone have any experience with doing this, and is there a certain kit that I should buy?

[Hosser]

I cant wait to hear some responses to this....I have osme experiene in working with acrylic like surfaces and Ive always used orbital or revolution sanders with surface scratch eliminating buffing pads and compounds. Depending on the depth of scratches or blemishes many could be taken out with simple polishing, harsher ones would more than likely need to be machined out......they have some nice orbitals and revolution sanders that wouldnt disrupt the water at all believe it or not. (only to be used on the outside by the way lol)

[Roady]

Yeah when I was looking up the kits that you can buy some of them are just used by hand, and some you can hook into a cordless drill. I think my scratches are superficial enough to get the hand held kit, but I was just curious if one brand worked better than the others.

[Truett]

I have 20 forty gallon acrylic aquariums and I use Novus polish and a orbital polisher.

[Roady]

Man that is a lot of aquariums, where did you buy the polish and polisher?

[Truett]

I ordered the Novus polish from Novus and bought the polisher from Wal-Mart.

[Roady]

I was looking at the Novus 1+2+3 polishing system online and it said just to use a soft dry cloth to apply and buff. Did you find using the orbital polisher more effective?

[Truett]

If you just have just some surface scratches you can just polish them out by hand. Some of the deeper scratches I use the orbital polisher. When I got the tanks a couple of them had some scratches that I had to use sand paper on.

[Roady]

I found this kit at Marine Depot, Rainbow Lifegard Acrylic Scratch Removal Kit 72000, and a really detailed review of the product by this fellow. Would you agree with what he said about polishing with the livestock in the water or no?

It works great, but... by Koret
Experience Level: Expert
Posted on 7/19/2007

Comments: This a great product, but some advice might ease some pain. The acrylic of my 150 gallon tank developed many scratches over 17 years. I hated the idea of draining the tank to remove the scratches, but things were getting ugly. Most scratches were from magnetic algae blocks, where a piece of coral sand was accidently picked up and scratched the acrylic. I found this product and decided to try it wet with fish, corals and the rest of the critters in place. Here's what I found: 1. The most coarse sheet of sandpaper is too fine -- buy some 600 grit waterproof sandpaper at a hardware store to remove the heaviest scratches first. 2. Quite a bit of acrylic dust will cloud the water. Keep your filter running and do the scratch removal in sections. My coral polyps closed up from the acrylic dust, but everything came out just fine. Not one critter or fish showed any lasting effects. 3. I used a Tunze Power Magnet Cleaner -- 2 1/4 inches by 3 inches -- to hold the sandpaper sheets. Wrap a heavy rubberband around the edges of the sandpaper sheets to hold onto the magnet which goes inside the tank, and polish the acrylic with the other magnet from the outside. Some liquid acrylic polish sprayed on the outside of the tank made the magnets slip easier. This method was way easier than sticking an arm inside the tank to try to polish with the included foam block... 4. Move from the 600 grit waterproof sandpaper directly through all the grades of sandpaper that come with this kit. When I was finished, my tank looked better than new. I couldn't use the final liquid polish that came with this kit, but I didn't need it. Good product -- well recommended, and you don't need to drain your tank.
Yes, I would recommend this product to my friends.

[Truett]

Personaly I would not have done it with fish in the tank. But it seems to have worked for him. I never have all of my tanks running at one time so I always have a spare to transfer fish or anything else to if I need to make a repair. I always keep one saltwater and one freshwater running for a hospital or quarentine.