Glasscage Vs Marineland/Perfecto
- Thread starter selki
- Start date
Hello All,
Was cruizing the web tonight and ran across this forum. I own a salt water aquatic shop here in NC and I have a ton of experience with Glass Cages so I thought I would lend a hand and give some insight.
First off I think most (not all) glass cages builds are garbage. The overflow teeth on ALL of their tanks cannot handle much flow at all so you need to widen all of the teeth. Their fit and finish on most corners is very bad. They don't do a very good job in beveling and buffing the edges so they fill large gaps with silicone. My store has 2 glass cages 240s and had a few 150+ square lagoon tanks. We also had a 200g cube that had a crack in it. Nearly all of those tanks showed up with some chips or oyster shells as well.
As far as acrylic tanks.... The worst I have seen to date. They should stick with glass to be honest. All material used is not the highest grade sheet stock. Their bond work is very sloppy with bonding cement puddled everywhere. Lots of bubbles in every joint.
So in all I would avoid them if you are looking for quality. And as I said some have good experiences. But we have not had any. And I can also confirm the crap customer service, basically if you get one and you have issues you are on your own, but they are happy to sell you a replacement.
Looking for a good acrylic tank you can't go wrong with Tenecor or SP Aquatics. We are resellers of SP Aquatics and prefer them actually.
Anyway I hope this info helps some.
Was cruizing the web tonight and ran across this forum. I own a salt water aquatic shop here in NC and I have a ton of experience with Glass Cages so I thought I would lend a hand and give some insight.
First off I think most (not all) glass cages builds are garbage. The overflow teeth on ALL of their tanks cannot handle much flow at all so you need to widen all of the teeth. Their fit and finish on most corners is very bad. They don't do a very good job in beveling and buffing the edges so they fill large gaps with silicone. My store has 2 glass cages 240s and had a few 150+ square lagoon tanks. We also had a 200g cube that had a crack in it. Nearly all of those tanks showed up with some chips or oyster shells as well.
As far as acrylic tanks.... The worst I have seen to date. They should stick with glass to be honest. All material used is not the highest grade sheet stock. Their bond work is very sloppy with bonding cement puddled everywhere. Lots of bubbles in every joint.
So in all I would avoid them if you are looking for quality. And as I said some have good experiences. But we have not had any. And I can also confirm the crap customer service, basically if you get one and you have issues you are on your own, but they are happy to sell you a replacement.
Looking for a good acrylic tank you can't go wrong with Tenecor or SP Aquatics. We are resellers of SP Aquatics and prefer them actually.
Anyway I hope this info helps some.
good to know. I looked into glass cages and was stunned at how many bad reviews I read..it was enough to scare me far away...
everyone seems to say the same thing:
they have sloppy silicone, not so nice trim, bad customer service etc...but for the money spent they aren't that bad....
I guess you get what you pay for?
the thing I don't get is, of all the things to cut costs on when purchasing a setup, the aquarium should NEVER be the one.
you want the best quality (within reason for the price) that you can get..
unless you like wet floors of course
everyone seems to say the same thing:
they have sloppy silicone, not so nice trim, bad customer service etc...but for the money spent they aren't that bad....
I guess you get what you pay for?
the thing I don't get is, of all the things to cut costs on when purchasing a setup, the aquarium should NEVER be the one.
you want the best quality (within reason for the price) that you can get..
unless you like wet floors of course
12 Volt Man;2584035; said:
I have a GC 240 now that I just got and havent set up yet. i have read a lot about them over the years and that is more or less what I ahve seen. Guy is an *** and its not a pretty show tank but will get the job done for cheap. I have heard here and there about a tank busting...but I have also heard that about other tanks too. You never know the real story (unless it was you) about how it broke...could have been something other than the tank...but the "cheap" tank is the first one to get the blame and its hard to disprove. I am in no way saying that it wasnt the cheap tank...but who knows. I can back up the claim that the teeth on the overflows are not big enough. My bro n law has a 135 that is like this...we need to widen the slots. So I am hoping my 240 doesnt bust open...I dont think it will...but who knows.
here are some pics of the 240 I got...seems to me that it is over braced on the top (good thing)
As for there acrylic I have not heard a good thing about it so dont do that. And yes you can put a tank on its side to get it through the door. I hade a custom 280 I had to do that too. I made some dollies out of 2x4's and set the tank on them on its side and rolled it through the door ways. Much easier than trying to get all the people through as well as the tank....
had my glass cage tanks for well over 4 yrs, no problem and tanks can be custom made to fit against anywall or space. this is the only company that make WIDE tanks in many sizes.
We haven't had any strength issues with their 240s so it's possible that certain builders are designated to specific tank builds. I don't think you will have any issues there. Just be sure to inspect it with a fine tooth comb before filling it. It is the only way we have found that they will really work with you on it.
I do know that if you look at any all-glass or perfecto 5, 10, 15, 20 gallon tank, the build is much worse than a larger tank and I am sure they "break in" their new blood on those.
And they need to fire the entire acrylic build department
I do know that if you look at any all-glass or perfecto 5, 10, 15, 20 gallon tank, the build is much worse than a larger tank and I am sure they "break in" their new blood on those.
And they need to fire the entire acrylic build department
