How do you clean a bowfront tank?

[escape2thewater]

I'm thinking about upgrading my reef when I move next year to a larger tank. I saw a gorgious oceanic 175g bowfront today at my lfs I was checking out but on my way home I began wondering how I would go about scraping the glass on a bowfront tank? So those who have bf tanks or know please chime in! I'm just thinking that I have to scrape my 120g glass about once a week or so to keep the coraline off. Thanks for any input!
KYle
:happyfish

 

[drummerbum]

get a mag float

 

[slammy16]

ditto

 

[harlequinnut]

Any kind of magnetic algae cleaners will not be able to effectively clean a bow front tank due to the curvature of the glass. I found that out trying to clean my 46 bow. What I have been doing was using a small hand held metal algae scrapper and reach in to scrape away the algae manually. Your whole arm gets wet but it works. You can try using an old credit card as a scrapper also. HTH

 

[stachy]

I have a 72 gal bowfront and all i've ever used was a mag float. I do use an algee scraper to remove any incrusting algee, ie... coralline algee. I've never had any problems with this type of float.
I think that mybe the 46 bow has a greater curve and this may inpead the cleaning process.
On a side note: If I were to do it again, I would not get a bow front as pictures are harder to take, and viewing it close up is wierd. However I love the overall look of the bow as a fixture in my home.
Hope this helps.

 

[slammy16]

same thing here i have only used a mag float for my 72gl. no problems. Hold the mag float verticaly maybe that would help.

 

[harlequinnut]

You could be right about the 46 being more curve than the larger bowfronts and that's why the mag floats won't work on my tank. :thinking: But I still couldn't use magnetic floats on my tank because the algae that grows in my reef tank are the hard encrusting kind and needs to be scrape off with an edge.

 

[italianwjt]

mag float