Painted back

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A dark background on a tank helps to make the livestock more visible, and is generally just more pleasing to look at.
 
Travis55 said:
Why do u guys paint ur tank walls? Im thinkin of doin this to my ten gal plastic bowfront nano reef.

Looks good, hides the wires etc... Also if you have bright colored fish a black background will help make those colors pop. I have a African Cichlid tank and painted the back black. Just make sure if you do it you tape off everything except the back, cover the top well! And clean the back with rubbing alcohol, let dry and take your time spraying it. Light layers back and forth, not to close to the glass either. Watch out for drips.
 
It's creates a really nice contrast between background and foreground. Anything with color will really pop.
 
It's creates a really nice contrast between background and foreground. Anything with color will really pop.

Cool. Thanks for your response. I will paint mine once i can figure out how to to remove the tape residue of the ugly background that was on it when i got it, without messing up the plastic...
 
Never had an acrylic, but from my understanding, an orange based cleaner is OK, as long as there are no abrasives in it. I do know that something like Goo-Gone is a big no-no...... I'd do some research.
 
I have a black painted background in all my tanks, gives a real sense of depth.

It works great showing off colour in my rainbow tank it really shows of the fishes colour :)
 
What paint do you reccommend? I really can't use spray paint, as i cant have the tank outside. I am having a 175 all glass delivered tomm. It currently has blue spray on the back, but my husband and I are partial to black. I plant to scrape all the blue off and clean with alcohol...The lady at the craft store said enamel will stick to glass. I also thought oil-based (even though it will smell bad) will be best, as latez since its water based will possibly start to bubble. I want to do this once, as the tank will weigh close to 2000 lbs. after the water, rock and sand. its not moving anywhere! We actually just waited the wall where its going, b/c if we dont do it now, we can't eve do it.

Pleasen help!
 
Where do YOU guys put the picture background ?? On the inside or outside of the tank.
Mine is on the outside, but was told by pet-store that inside would be better to view.
Haen
 
Definitely not inside.

It goes on the outside. On the inside it will become covered with algae, would be difficult to get it to stick, and I would imagine would just generally not work. This is a new one on me - a LFS recommending to put a background inside the tank.....
 
Not your traditional black or blue, but this is how I painted my 30 gallon -
 
I painted the back of my tanks with regular old acrylic craft paint. Roll it on and it actually doesn't have to be all that thick. I think I did 3 coats and went up and down 1 coat, hit it with the hair dryer a few minutes and then back and forth second coat and back to up and down for the final coat.

As long as you aren't scraping against it a lot, the paint will stay in place. Even if you use HOB filtration it won't hurt the paint job as long as you're gentle with the equipment against the painted glass.
 
Be advised, looking out from the inside of the tank and no lighting on the interior, the back will not seem opaque with 3 coats. Once you get the thing filled and light shooting down from overhead you won't even notice what was glaringly obvious before when viewed from the inside. It's probably an optical illusion of some sort but I swear it works. Three good coats in alternating direction layers with hair dryer about a minute past "dry to the touch" between.
That's the way I did it.
 
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+1 on the craft acrylic rolled on. "Martha Stewart Crafts" - Multi-Surface SATIN, to be exact. Cheap small bottles so you don't end up with tons of extra left over. No fumes, easy cleanup. We were happy with 3 coats too, seemed VERY opaque even shining a flashlight on it from the back. We did 3 sides of a 15G hospital tank with about 3 oz of paint (1.5 2oz bottles @ $2 each).

- D
 
I don't think the sheen on the paint matters too much, nor the brand. Flat, Satin or Gloss are all gonna look the same on glass pretty much. The amount you'll need also varies by the size tank and how thick the layers are applied. 175 gallon will need a couple of large tubes, maybe more IMHO. I've used whatever craft paint was on sale for dirt cheap at the craft store, I've used stuff from Walmart, even Eggshell wall paint left over from painting a room and it all worked on the glass. I've also alternated colors using blue, then purple, then blue again with interesting results. My artist ex painted a mural on the back glass of my mom's tank using artist acrylic and a couple of artist brushes. The trick on glass is to paint the scene in reverse of the way you'd do it on a canvas with details first and then the background painted last. If you want to do it this way, remember one important detail- the hair dryer is your bestest friend!
 
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