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View Full Version : Can a scratch lead to a crack?


psilo
09/06/2006, 09:11 PM
Hello -

first and foremost, I have a 55 gal tank that sits 99.9% level (i notice the left side is about 1/4 an inch higher than the right side, at most..

on the left side (again where water is sitting higher), on the very bottom left about an inch above the top of my sand, after doing my magfloat and evidently picking up a piece of sand, i have a 1" long scratch. I can feel it from the inside and can't even slide my fingernail into the groove up and down, but can definately feel it..

when light hits it it looks more like a crack, but then again i don't know exactly what scratched glass looks like - it just looks shimmery in the scratch when hitting it head on with light.. There's no spiderwebbing, its as if a dog hair or something was stuck against the glass.. verticle, 0 branching.

Just very paranoid as this is the headboard to my bed and a leak/break would probably kill me if it happened during the night, or at the very least flood my bedroom and ruin about everything I own.

Just trying to check up on the safety of having this scratch, could care less about it asthetically..

Thanks a billion.

BK

boxfishpooalot
09/06/2006, 09:36 PM
I doubt the scratch will break the glass. If the scratch goes from one end to the other, then its possible.

They cut glass by scrathing it then breaking it where the scratch is.

drummereef
09/06/2006, 10:35 PM
If it's that small, it's probably just cosmetic more than anything.

Steel_Phoenix
09/06/2006, 11:30 PM
A scratch on glass will create a slightly more brittle area. If your glass were to come under enough stress to break, the chances are very good that it would break along the scratch. A glass cutter is really just scratching the surface enough to create a path of least resistance. I don't think it makes your tank much more likely to break though. Having the scratch on the inside of the tank should be less serious than the outside as well. I've cut and broken tens of thousands of pieces of glass and it is much easier to break away from the scratch than towards it.

manderx
09/07/2006, 10:29 AM
i had a very deep scratch on the outside of the bottom of my 3x3, dead center. i was very worried about it turning into a crack so i ground it out with a diamond bit. yours doesn't sound very deep so i wouldn't worry at all. scratches like that are very common and i've never heard of them doing anything bad.

dc
09/07/2006, 11:47 AM
Well I'd probably not keep a tank where an accident might ruin everything I had. But as far as the scratch, I doubt that it will hurt anything just sitting there. I've got a couple large gashes in mine from when it was a FW tank .

SirSmapty
09/07/2006, 12:01 PM
I've got a 105g Oceanic that has a pit taken out of the glass. Looking at the glass from the front the pit is about 1/10th the thickness the glass and has been there for years. I worried so much about it for the longest time, but glass is pretty strong stuff. Small blemishes shouldn't comprimise the integrity of the tank. Big ones like computer chairs (long story) do.