I went to a friends pet shop yesterday, and he had one on a counter set up as a mini reef tank, and it looked like it was doing well. It was only proabably between 20 and 30 gallons. I didn't check out the lighting in it, but there were some live corals, and they looked like they were doing alright. I asked his take on them and he said they work, but they're kind of small. BIGGER is ALWAYS better when it comes to saltwater, keep that in mind. I gave up on the Marine thing, because after selling them wholesale, and transhipping them for years, most of them are not collected and cared for properly, many can NOT be kept in captivity due to specialized diets, and they are treated as disposable animals, when they die you just buy more, no one really expects to keep them for any length of time.

I have a 12 gallon Nano cube glass tank that is 3 years old and it is leaking from the top edge of the glass. I have to keep the water level down 1 inch from the top. Also the bright lights have gone out. For Christmas gift I received a 75 gallon glass tank to begin my hobby again. Nine years ago I had a regular 60 gallon glass tank that I kept for 5 years and nothing went wrong with it. I gave up the hobby when we moved to another state. Since there are a lot of cube tanks that are acrylic, I do not recommend the acrylic tanks because they can scratch easily. I know you can buff the scratches out but I really don't think the acrylic that is more expensive then the glass is worth it. I personally like the bow glass aquariums. Just my opinion.
Theresa

I have 2 acrylic aquariums - one I've had about 5 years, the other just 1 year. The scratch issue is a problem, you must be very careful, and even with that, I have quite a few light scratches in both mine. When I do the water change you can really see them above the waterline. But the wierd thing is, when they are full of water, the scratches don't show. I will never do another glass aquarium - the clarity of acrylic, and the rounded corners with no frame to obscure visibility make it worth it to me. They are expensive, the main reason I only have a 25 and a 40. That plus the cost of shipping the larger sizes is far more than I can do. The clarity is what is so incredible with acrylic.

Here is a tip to clean algae off them and not scratch them. Get your self a small bag of that stuff they use in box filters, you know the white cottony stuff. It makes the best algae scrubber there is and it won't scratch, it works on glass too! Just pull off a little bit and have at it, it really does work better than any of the scrub pads anyway.

That's a nifty tip bambi too. I got the pads specifically for acrylic, but I think they do scratch some if you rub too hard. I have some of the cottony stuff, so I will try that.