Magnetic glass cleaners.

What are peoples opinions on magnetic glass cleaners? Are they able to do a good job of cleaning? Are they worth the price if you have a very tall tank?

I know some complain about sand getting trapped between them but this wouldn't be a problem for my 350. The sand is a good 4" below the bottom of my glass and as far as I can tell my UGJ and sump pumps discharge lines move it around but doesn't seem to cause any to float in the water column.

I hate them and don´t use them any more for the same reason that you just gave. All the scratches on my 66 gallon comes from this. For you they should work perfectly. Todays algae magnets are very strong and most of them floats as well.

They work great at cleaning the glass, just like scrubbing it with 60 grit JK
I have a 3 or 4 scratches on my 120gal from grit left on an old magfloat that I didn't clean too good, my 180 is almost ruined but mostly by the stupid kids up the road that wanted to see if rocks could cut glass
If the sand is 4 inches below, I wouldn't really worry about it unless the fish get excited when the scraper gets close, but now it's a game whenever the kid's friends come over and I'm not in the room to play "chase the magfloat". If I catch them, then it's a whole different game.
Think it's just one of those facts of life we have to deal with, either murder a few children or look at a few green or brown spots and blame it on them anyway. Even the handheld scrapers can pick up grit and make micro scratches that you'll never notice for months until they fill in with algae. Then after you scrub them clean, you know exactly where they are and you see them every time you look at the tank.

Just my random ramble of the day.
Those same frikken kids also developed a game of throwing rocks at cars a few months later and chipped the wife's door window a good bit. They even developed a fetish for randomly stacking rocks in people's yards. Busted a bedroom window from my lawnmower a couple of days before I tied that little bastard up in the attic and pulled his toenails out with .25 ounce lead sinkers attached with super glue. It took 5 days for them all to fall out, but he and his brothers don't come around here much except to sell me cheap candy bars for $2 a piece.

This is the best seller in Sweden. The mag-float works very well, but because of the strong magnet also gives you deep scratches if you get sand trapped between them.

http://www.magfloat.net/telas/pagina.php?id=3

bulldogg7 wrote:They work great at cleaning the glass, just like scrubbing it with 60 grit JK
I have a 3 or 4 scratches on my 120gal from grit left on an old magfloat that I didn't clean too good, my 180 is almost ruined but mostly by the stupid kids up the road that wanted to see if rocks could cut glass
If the sand is 4 inches below, I wouldn't really worry about it unless the fish get excited when the scraper gets close, but now it's a game whenever the kid's friends come over and I'm not in the room to play "chase the magfloat". If I catch them, then it's a whole different game.
Think it's just one of those facts of life we have to deal with, either murder a few children or look at a few green or brown spots and blame it on them anyway. Even the handheld scrapers can pick up grit and make micro scratches that you'll never notice for months until they fill in with algae. Then after you scrub them clean, you know exactly where they are and you see them every time you look at the tank.

Just my random ramble of the day.
Those same frikken kids also developed a game of throwing rocks at cars a few months later and chipped the wife's door window a good bit. They even developed a fetish for randomly stacking rocks in people's yards. Busted a bedroom window from my lawnmower a couple of days before I tied that little bastard up in the attic and pulled his toenails out with .25 ounce lead sinkers attached with super glue. It took 5 days for them all to fall out, but he and his brothers don't come around here much except to sell me cheap candy bars for $2 a piece.

Those frikken kids

I don't like them either. It just seems that no matter how careful you are, sand somehow gets on it and all it takes is one grain.

I think my sand was attracted to the magnet.

Aura wrote:I don't like them either. It just seems that no matter how careful you are, sand somehow gets on it and all it takes is one grain.

I think my sand was attracted to the magnet.

There is always iron in the sand. I went through my tank sand once with a magnet and alot of grains were magnetic.

i like them norm just be careful buy the sand i have a small one for my 360 and its doing good i need a bigger one just when you get close to the sand just wacth it close and if you think there is sand in there just let it float to the top and swish it on the top and the sand will get out or just leave the bottom and get a long sscrubber to do it

Never thought about the iron shavings found in most sands. As a kid it was a class project to run a magnet through sand and collect the iron shavings and place them in a test tube.

The tank is empty right now so I'm off to be a kid again. I knew those refrigerator magnets would come in handy for something besides my wife's honey do notes which more often than not get ignored.

i think if you rinse the sand enough youll be fine i havent scrathed my tank yet and i had a bunch of sand on it one time

the trick i've noticed is to use only the ones made for acrylic. I use MagFloat's only. The ones for acrylic are light blue in color.

they are more gentle and don't catch particles like the made-for-glass magfloats. They still do a fine job on glass. Acrylic magfloats and kent pro scrapers save me a great deal of time and hassle on the job.

i avoid using them anywhere within a few inches of the substrate, even gravel.

Acrylic magfloat scrub side:


Glass magfloat scrub side:

I'll keep my eye out for one of those. The 350 is a pretty deep tank and the aquarium scrub brush isn't too different from using a mag cleaner. I've ended up with sand in that also in the past.

I have a small one I use in my SW tank to sweep the lightest "film" off the glass. It doesn't really work for the tough SW algae, so I do that manually when i do a water change. Works good for the deep little tank.,