I currently have a 144 half circle and love it. It does give you a little bit of a distortion but not nearly as much as a bowfront and as Allan mentioned cleaning it is a little bit diferent instead of going up and down you have to go side to side. I use a mag float with a blade on the end and it makes cleaning very easy, but without it you will be in misery trying to clean the tank. For a reef I would prefer glass unless you are going with a large bowfront tank (300+) than I would probably go with acrylic.