Glass vs. Acrylic

[Lotus]

I have a 110g acrylic, and I'm pretty happy with it. It's nice and light, and more earthquake proof than glass. When you have a larger tank, it's worth buffing out the scratches. However, if I had small kids, I think I'd have to train them to stay away from it.

A while back, a customer at our LFS left her kid unattended while she was looking at fish. He made a bunch of huge scratches in one of the tanks they had for sale. I felt so bad for the LFS having to buff it out. And that kid was about 10, and should have known better (and I guess his mother should have, too).

 

[sombunya]

I've looked at both and I went with glass.

The 100 I'll be picking up soon is made with 3/8" thick glass. At 24" tall it will have a load of about 125 lbs. per sq/ft. on the floor and near the bottom. As you move up from the bottom (where it attaches to the floor of the tank) the load decreases. Easy to calculate.

This site here talks about supports and reinforcement when building tanks with glass. I wouldn't worry too much about bowing.