your expert advice is needed!

[ray0266]

Hello all. I just brought home my 120 gal tank. I need some advise on how to go about this. It is going to be a community reef tank in a couple of months, after I finish refurbishing it.
Here is my situation.
The tank is acrylic, 120 gallons, with the foam background. It has scratches on the inside and on the outside (for this i have purchased a kit to buff out the surface). There is some red algae and other build up that has to be removed also. The stand and the hood are metal and they need to be sanded and painted. The doors on the stand are wood and they need to be sanded and painted as well. I will also be replacing the pipes.
My question is how I should go about this. What is the best way to get the red algae off the acrylic? Can I use vinegar to clean the inside of the tank? (i am worrried about the foam absorbing the venigar).
how would you do this yourself?
any help would be appreciated.
Ray

 

[Tucson Reef]

Vinegar is cheap pour a gallon in and run a powerhead for a day, a lot should just flake off. Then careful with a plastic scraper(credit card will work) leave the vinegar water in and be careful not to pick up any sand while scraping, it not easy to do. Take your time, be careful some chemical will craze acrylic (kinda like shattered safety glass). Hope you got it cheap, its a lot of work and deep scratches will sometimes come out but leave a distortion.

 

[Bifferwine]

Vinegar is safe to use to clean. Even if a little is leftover after you rinse it, it's such a weak acid that it won't hurt anything.

 

[ray0266]

thanks for the advise. I got the tank very cheap. I have done some cleaning and everything seems to come off so far.
There are lots of scratches but i found a product that will take everything off. It requires lots of elbow grease and time though.
I will be redoing all the pipes, sanding and repainting the stand, the canopy and the wood trimming.
The piping had lots of patches and no leaks but i didn't want to take the chance of a disaster later on!
The stand was rusting, so that had to be done as well.
Scratches will be done with a 600 grid and gradually will go to a 12000 grid crystal pads. Then it will be finished with a final polish liquid abrasive.
thanks again for all the help.
Ray

 

[ynnhoj86]

ray, hows the tank coming along

 

[ray0266]

Johnny,
I had the stand sanded off and repainted with some darker color which is also textured. Today, i will be putting a clear coat on it to repel water. the tank itself had too many scratches so i ended up resanding the whole thing, inside and out. The kit i got had sanding sheets starting at 1500 which didn't take any of the major scartches off (too deep). so i started with 600 and moved on to 1000 then 1500 and so on. At first the tank looked very cloudy. but as i took micro layers off, it seemed better. I am at filnal stages of polishing the surface. It looks much btter. All the scratches are gone.
I took all piping off as well (some were lose and had a minor leak from the inside of the pipe). I will be reusing some of the pipes though. Next challenge would be to somehow take the rust off from the top of the tank (will not be sanding the top).
i am hoping it will be ready to go by the end of the week.
Ray