Low Iron glass or Regular? Worth it?

[X-37B]

I think the only real way to tell what you want is to look at a few complete tanks with both.
Side by side empty the low iron is noticably clearer.
Once the tank is full of water, rock, corals, and covered in coralline, you would be hard to tell the difference imo.
Most people like myself focus on the reef and not the glass.
Just my observations yours may vary!

 

[Vette67]

Sooner or later you will get a clear tank, Pay now and enjoy or pay again later

That’s the trouble, honestly. You’re right. We would all probably prefer the low iron glass (cost aside). But my original used 75 gallon I bought in 1997 was scratched to he**, and I hated it. It’s hard to sort through the opinions and get a true idea of how easily low iron glass scratches. If a razor blade scratches it, then it’s a deal breaker. If you have to drag a piece of live rock across it, then I can avoid that...

 

[X-37B]

That’s the trouble, honestly. You’re right. We would all probably prefer the low iron glass (cost aside). But my original used 75 gallon I bought in 1997 was scratched to he**, and I hated it. It’s hard to sort through the opinions and get a true idea of how easily low iron glass scratches. If a razor blade scratches it, then it’s a deal breaker. If you have to drag a piece of live rock across it, then I can avoid that...

My only experience with low iron was on a 18" cubed nano. It got several scratches in the glass from unknown sources. They were from me on the inside but the tank was small and hard to work in.
One 10" scratch on the outside may have been from the cat.
I never used a scraper either.
I went with standard on my 120 and 8 months in no scratches.

 

[JumboShrimp]

Help!! I didn’t get low iron glass, and now I can’t see my fish!!

(Just a little good-natured humor )

 

[salty joe]

, but the rumors of ease of scratching in the low iron glass has me concerned,

I would contact the technical experts at PPG or any manufacturer of low iron glass to settle the controversy. I did that and was told low iron glass has the same Knoop hardness as regular glass. As far as I'm concerned, it's settled. OTOH, regular glass as well as low iron glass are both easy to scratch up. I've had my 3/4" low iron viewing panel for 5 years and there are a couple teeny tiny scratches even though I try to be careful.
IMO, anything thicker than 3/8", low iron is worth it. I can't imagine acrylic.

 

[X-37B]

Help!! I didn’t get low iron glass, and now I can’t see my fish!!

(Just a little good-natured humor )

I like it.
I did not get low iron glass, now I have high iron levels in my tank, but the algae likes it!
We could all use a little more humor.

 

[Vette67]

I never used a scraper either.
I went with standard on my 120 and 8 months in no scratches.

I have a 180 gallon All-Glass tank that I bought in 2002. Every month or 2 or 3, I have to get in there with a razor blade and scrape off the coralline. 18 years later, and I have no scratches. So I have no doubt the “green” glass can handle razor blades.

 

[hart24601]

Having had a few custom made tanks in starfire, particularly 3/4", it's a big difference. Even 1/2" I will now pass on a regular glass tank.

For the scratching there might be differences, but I am not convinced they matter for our purposes if the glass is 10% more scratch prone or so as if you get sand under a magnet scrubber it's scratching either way. I have scratched both types over the years before I got much more careful.


Now I am a big fan of how the tank looks in the room too, not just looking inside - not everyone is and that's totally fine, but I do have people comment on how clear the thick glass is - no joke however perhaps that's because lots of my friends are in construction and architecture and work with glass a lot.

 

[PatW]

It depends.

My display tank is starfire. I am a photographer. I can tell at a glance if a tank is regular glass or low iron. And I do not like the blue green tint of regular glass. Low iron glass has some of that tint, it is just much fainter. Acrylic. Is perfectly clear but it seems to scratch if you look at it hard.

Now if I ran my lights with strong blue channels and no white lights, regular glass would be far less noticeable.

On these “are they worth it?” sorts of questions, it boils down to personal preference.

 

[bam123]

IF you are running 14kelvin or higher, you will not notice the difference of low iron glass. Low iron glass makes a big difference with 10k kelvin or lower. Low iron doesn't mean better clarity, it means it filters less of certain wavelengths. I only have low iron glass tanks, its not much more expensive and the placebo effect makes it so much clearer. Also, as stated above, with photography and different filters probably makes a difference.

 

[siggy]

Come on guys, glass is tough, if it's going to scratch star fire it's going to scratch green glass too. A cats claw is not going to scratch any glass. I had a rock slide in the marineland tank and it scratched it...that's life

 

[Kris B]

Low iron hands down. I'm so happy I went with it on mine.

 

[piranhaman00]

BUMP

 

[gunguy05]

BUMP

aftet going back and forth on this, I went with low iron. Zero regrets.

 

[piranhaman00]

aftet going back and forth on this, I went with low iron. Zero regrets.

Will cost me approx 200$ extra with 1/2" glass on a 2k budget. Cant decide!

 

[JumboShrimp]

Recently got my two (2) custom 150 gallon tanks, low iron. (Previous tank was not.) Had some discussions with the manufacturer— his position was that he has yet to see any evidence that low iron glass is any more ‘scratch-prone’ than regular. Let me just say that the LIG is amazing, and for the money I have into theses tanks I would have wanted to jump off a bridge if I HADN’T gone with low iron.

 

[Dr. Jim]

Many years ago I had a 500 gal fiberglass tank with a 1" thick green glass panel. The green tint always bothered me....and I'll never forget my Yellow-Green Tang!
I know 1" isn't common but I will never buy a tank with "green" glass again.

 

[Bacon505]

Its nice to have starfire glass if you plan on cleaning your glass regularly to make it worth it. You have to run 14k or so lighting to make it worth and not blue windex color like most people do.

 

[JumboShrimp]

@Bacon505 makes an interesting point. My tank is a FOWRL, so I run bright white lights 95% of the time.

 

[anthonygf]

I’ve been thinking of having a 390 built and was wondering the same thing. As always, there’s contradicting stories. I would like to go low iron front glass for clarity, but the rumors of ease of scratching in the low iron glass has me concerned, especially with urchins and coralline algae growth. Now I would never do acrylic in a reef, but I think I’d rather have green tinted glass than scratches all over, if that’s my choice of trade-offs.

I built a 390 44 years ago when I was a teen. Went in my 1966 F-100, when I hopped on the pedal it sounded like a jet engine. What fun, 3 speed on the floor, the shifter was about 3 feet long.