Removing scratches from inside an acrylic tank

[lmeyer]

I've put some nasty scratches on the inside of my tank over the years. Am looking for someone who buffs out the inside of existing tanks. Does anyone out there know of a service that will do this?

[xeon]

I don't know of anyone that does it, but I have done it. In fact I'm doing one of my tank presently in my spare time. You need to get a Novus kit first of all. E-bay was the best source I found with the kit costing around $20 including shipping. Just search for Novus and it should turn up a buy it now auction around $13.

 

The kit contains a cleaner, light scratch remover and a heavier scratch remover. Depending on the severity of the scratches you can either buff the scratches by hand or graduate to power tools. If the scratch is really bad, it might even be worthwhile to wet sand with some 1500 or 2000 then move to the Novus 3 and then 2. Presently I'm using an orbital buffer with a terry pad, which is working out pretty good. For corners and close to the corners, I'm using my Dremel with a felt pad.

[Grav]

I used #2, an orbital sander and an old t-shirt.

 

I did a 150g (empty) inside and out durring a football game.

 

The sander was nice cuz the square corners and straight edges work well in this right angled world.

 

1st scratches in the tank came within a week.... bit of sand under the magnet.

 

Anyone know what happens if you try to buff a tank full of water?

[lmeyer]

Severity isn't so bad, but there are a lot of scratches after 6 hard years with some stupid stuff done over that time. I looked at all the things I want to do with my tank and decided this was one I would farm out if possible. Already spending more time than I can afford. Plus this is the one thing that if I mess it up will really be hard to recover from. I'll look around a bit first, but thanks for the input!