Starphire vrs good old glass

[lastlight]

clarity depends on glass thickness of course. having owned a 19mm glass tank i can tell you it was really green. starphire would have been nice. with my current nano i doubt i'd notice much of a difference as the glass is very thin.

[Pan]

Originally Posted by lastlight

clarity depends on glass thickness of course. having owned a 19mm glass tank i can tell you it was really green. starphire would have been nice. with my current nano i doubt i'd notice much of a difference as the glass is very thin.

Excellent point, thickness does play a significant part. This is a little example of why people spends months planning builds before actually doing anything

[fishyfishster]

I only glass I'd ever pay extra for Is the algae repelling kind

[marie]

Well I guess I'm one of the careless ones. I never scratched my bowfront and I had to scrape a lot of coralline algae but this new tank is something else, within a few weeks the scratches were appearing

[wickedfrags]

agree 100% with that below. since I started in saltwater in 1999 I have put one noticeable scratch on a tank, I have not scratched any of my 4 starphire tanks

Originally Posted by sphelps

I don't really think it scratches much easier, the truth is if you can scratched a starphire tank it's more than likely you would have scratched the regular glass as well. I think it's a blame game people play when they've been careless.

Originally Posted by Tyler Werbowski

I agree with Sphelps. People with scratched up staphire tanks would probably have a scratched up regular tanks.

[jostafew]

Starphire (low iron) glass is definetly softer but whether that will be a factor in daily use is debatable, as seen in this thread. Float glass does have a green tint as compared to starphire which is nearly colorless, but how noticeable that is depends on the thickness. Last consideration is cost. How much will you pay to NOT have a slight green tint when looking into the tank. For my two cents, neither of the tanks I had custom built have included starphire, I just couldn't justify the extra cost. One had 1/2" glass, the current one has 3/8"

[sphelps]

For the record I said careless not stupid

Perhaps some who have owned standard glass tanks for many years have grown accustom to a more aggressive cleaning technique which perhaps is too much for starphire glass. However with a little care, which you should apply regardless of what type of glass you use, will insure your starphire tank never gets scratched. I've pretty much always had starphire tanks, never had an issue and I use standard cleaning magnets for glass, not acrylic or anything special.

In regards to different types of low iron, I had a theory not long ago regarding generic low iron to be easier to scratch than brand name starphire. This was due to the discovery of a scratch after cleaning my new tank for the first time which has generic low iron. However after talking with people involved in building it and a few tests it's become fairly conclusive the scratch was there before I filled the tank.

At the end of the day, glass can be scratched, how easily really depends. The bottom line is if you're not the type of person to take a little extra time in ensuring you're not doing something that potentially scratch your tank then you shouldn't waste your money on a more expensive version of it.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by sphelps

For the record I said careless not stupid

Sorry. That was meant as a joke. Thus the little laughy fella.


And as I said, despite my views, I would still do another low iron clear type glass front of the tank thingy.