Custom Aquarium

@Turbo's Aquatics I think your looking for Starfire as the branding name.
I was at hobby lobby and came accross some stuff with a 3/4" slab of it roughly 4" x4" as the base. Crystal clear, really neat. I would imagine once you get to glass sheets greater than 3/8" thick you start to see an exponential benefit.
The green gets more noticeable with thickness and starts to dull the colors from inside the tank out

 

There are other brands, but starfire is the one we see the most.

I remember reading about the hardness, I will try to find it, but at least for real starfire the difference was very small, not really significant if I remember right.

 

From beananimal of reef central. It's also what uncleof6 said there too. Both very experienced the the subject:

"According to PPG (the folks who manufacture StarFire) there are no difference in the mechanical properties between theirlow iron and annealed products.

Here is the deal folks

Glass is no just "glass". Each manufacturer has their own formulas for producing glass and their own process. Each product differs in tensile strength based on the ingredients and process used to fuse them. Glass comes in numerous strengths and ratings that very in range of flexibility, tensile strength and hardness. Company A's architextural annealed product may be 10% harder than company B's architextural product. You never know what you are getting in an aquarium, but suffice to say that it is plain old annealed architectural glass that falls into the average for that product type.

Is "low iron" glass softer? Does it scratch easier? To answer that, you would have to who's low iron glass it is and what you are comparing it to, but in general annealed and low iron are very similar in strength properties and surface hardness and in fact the low iron may have a harder surface.

Did you know that regular annealed float glass has a hard and a soft side? That's right, the side that is floated on the tin is softer and scratches easier than the side exposed to air on the float line.

Still concerend about scratches? Then have the panels tempered, that will ensure that the glass does not scratch. "



I think scratches are more noticeable just because the glass is clear.

 

I've looked at them before and they have great prices but I have never purchased.
Have you tired RC?