So… lets chat results. If you are lost, and have to catch up, here is the article that changed the way a lot of us clean our acrylic.

If you still don’t know how to use one, here is a sample:

Step 1. Wet sponge with tank water.

Step 2. Lightly move sponge against the acrylic pane.

Step 3. Algae comes off.

Still worried? A famed, and on-call reef chemist Randy Holmes-Farley had his take on this at Reef Central:

Melamine as a plastic is likely OK. I’d be more concerned about tiny fibrous bits of fine plastic breaking off and irritating things, but that’s random speculation.

It is located in the cleaning isle, second shelf, near the everyday scrubbers. Thank us later.

For the rest of us, lets get to the meat of the results:

Elite Reef (R2R):

i have glass so i can scrub with whatever i want but i do use one from time to time. i wont say i find it better then any other method i use but it does work well. as for otehr household uses however it works GREAT!!. love those things.

FYI target sell a generic brand that is larger in size and half the price. it is the exact same thing.

ReefRunner (R2R)

I’ve been very happy with it. It makes cleaning my acrylic tank and my glass bowfront very easy. It does not take the coraline off though so you do have to remove that like you normally do. I find that it seems to polish my acrylic as well.

zoous (R2R)

I used it yesterday and it works like a charm. But you still need to apply pressure in order to remove tougher stains. Yeah, coralline algae is a no go. It does very well on scratched surfaces as well.

gparr (R2R)

I always thought it had some kind of embedded chemical in it. Apparently, that’s not the case.

Ladypig (the oroginal discoverer of this magic tool)

A few notes I’d like to add. Others have said that this will definitely scratch a tank. I have drop the level of my tank 5 inches to allow it to dry to see if it showed any signs of hazing or scratching…there were none…ZERO…NADA..my tank is crystal clear. On another forum there was someone who claimed to mask off part of an “acrylic” ruler and was able to scratch it with the Magic Eraser. I have not been able to find an acrylic ruler locally at the office stores etc to try and duplicate his findings. Plenty of plastic but not acrylic…that being said…my tank is of a MUCH higher quality acrylic than what it available for 50 cents from a dollar store. If there weren’t different grades of acrylic then there wouldn’t be different prices. Also, I don’t think I could use an acrylic polishing kit to buff out an acrylic ruler.

While the Magic Eraser will remove coraline with a little elbow grease, I really would not recommend it. Coraline is a hard deposit and I’m sure pieces of it would stick in the sponge and that might possibly scratch your tank, same as getting a piece of sand or crushed coral caught in the sponge…it would scratch and you would want to blame the sponge..when it was what was caught in it that did the scratching.

Do a good, one time cleaning on the tank then use the sponge as a daily maintenance step. Don’t wait 6 months to clean and then moan that it doesn’t really work. A little daily swipe saves a lot of time and elbow grease effort in the long run.

Use common sense…if you’re not comfortable doing a front pane, try a side pane for a while and see if you are happy with the results.
This is something I researched before I tried it…I should start a “Lazy Reefer” blog with all my short cuts. Some will not want to try this, the decision is of course, theirs.

SaltySteele (R2R)

upon nina’s recommendation i started using this a couple months ago. works great, and acrylic looks better than it did before i started using it! no abrasive, other than the material is tightly stranded material (kinda like fiberglass, but different material, and much denser, but even thinner strands). i use my dobia pad for the coraline, but everything else is made quick work of by my mr. clean!

Smann (PNWMAS)

Picked up a box last night after reading this thread. seemed to work well. After it was wet it sliced very easily with a razor into thin sheets which I used with my Hammerhead magnet. It stayed on fine but you cant jump corners. going to let things dirty up a little then try one area with the white pad and then with the eraser to see if I can notice a difference.

colorfan45 (ReefCentral)

I use them on my zero edge aquarium and they rock.

snorvich (ReefCentral)

Having now tried Magic Eraser, I find it works well with some kinds of algae and not so well with others. Still, a good product.

jpa0741 (ReefCnetral)

I shaved off a thin piece and have been using it between my magnet now for about a month. I have been very happy with the results. I would definitly say it is less harsh then the dobie pad I was using before this.

Lots of evidence that this thing works! Have you tried it?

Well this may be one of those moments where all proud acrylic tank owners can take an deserving exhale because it seems that someone might have found the perfect cleaner for your delicate tank. Ladipyg on Reef 2 Reef forums, has used an unconventional tool to help her clean her tank: the Magic Eraser.

What is that you say? Well the Magic Eraser is a Proctor and Gamble product that manages to ‘magically’ erase or wipe out any blemishes on most surfaces. It has been recently marketed as the best cleaning sponge ever to be used at home.

So when Ladipyg used this scrubber on the inside of her tank, she found amazing results. Not only did it help clean the acrylic, but it prohibited the algae to return in faster numbers.

So what is this ‘Magic Eraser”? It is a melamine foam scrubber.  Sound worried? According to the wiki article, melamine foam is safe for our reefs:

Melamine foam is a foam-like material consisting of a formaldehyde-melamine-sodium bisulfite copolymer.

The foam is manufactured in Germany by BASF under the name “Basotect”. It has been used for over 20 years as insulation for pipes and ductwork, and has a long history as a soundproofing material for studios, sounds stages, auditoriums, and the like. The low smoke and flame properties of melamine foam prevent it from being a fire hazard^{[citation needed]}.

In the early 21st century it was discovered that melamine foam was an effective abrasive cleaner. The open cell foam is microporous and its polymeric substance is extremely hard, so that when used for cleaning it works like extremely fine sandpaper, getting into tiny grooves and pits in the object being cleaned. On a larger scale the material feels soft. Because the bubbles interconnect, its structure is more like a maze of fibreglass strands than like the array of separate bubbles in, for example, styrofoam.

The most important thing is it doesn’t have any harmful chemicals that would react under water.

So, I am tracking this thread for us acrylic owners. Because if this proves to be THE cleaner of choice for the immediate future, you will be the first to be aware. In fact, I will be trying this method out very soon and will post some results. But if you are already out the door, make sure you buy the PLAIN ones. Not the scented or anything else.
Now where is my nearest supermarket?