Removing scrathes on acrylic tank

[actiondave13]

I was given a tank that the prevouis owner must have used a green pad or something to clean the inside since there are scratches on all 4 sides of the inside. I read that you can use diffrerent grits of sandpaper to remove the scratches. Has anyone tried this? I didn't notice until I set the tank up and it has three fish in it. Should I take the water down below the scrathes..rub them out, vac the tank and return the fish to the tank. Will this work and be safe for the fish? Thanks for your input!

 

[Newman]

def not while the fish are in the tank lol.
this sounds like the same method as restoring car headlights...with sandpaper.
you need to start with coarser grit and then get finer, step by step. research restoring old car headlights and it might give you an idea of how to do it. however for aquariums, especially acrylic I'm not so sure. that owner's a dumbarse though =/

 

[actiondave13]

scratches aren't really that deep..seems like there would be a way to buff them out

 

[Lotus]

You can definitely do it, but it takes a lot of time and patience to get it right. If you do it wrong, you end up with "waves" in the acrylic, which distorts the view.

A Google search will probably give you some good tutorials.

There are some kits you can supposedly use while the fish are in the tank, but it would probably be best to drain the tank.