Tank backgrounds?

Acrylic paint
I like blue but that's a personal preference I like to keep it blue so I built my rocks with room to clean. In my tank thread is side by side blue vs black.

 

I used tremclad flat black and a foam roller, worked great and I think it looks great (it looks shiny when looked at through the glass, same as when you put the clear coat on top of flat black when painting a car)

 

I used a pre printed backround ..
It goes on easy and if you ever scratch the front you can turn the tank around!!!


thay also come in plain blue or black plastic !!

 

Thats a good point.

 

One thing to keep in mind that backgrounds will drop PAR values of lighting quite a bit. The background will absorb a percentage of lighting, whereas the bare wall will reflect the light back into the tank when it hits the tank wall. In a FOWLR tank, it wouldn't be too important, but in reef tanks, it may be a big difference. And yes, I do have a black background on my 150G tank.

 

This doesn’t seem to make sense to me the light that makes it through to the back of the glass would only be able to reflect off what is in the room. Aka the wall, the couch, anything in the room. How would this light make it back to the tank with any power? Wouldn’t the light that is going to reflect off the glass still be reflected?

 

Think of the glass this way. If you take the cross section of it, you will basically have 2 walls, one that is on the inside of the tank, the other on the outside. Some of the light will initially reflect back into the water from the wall that is inside the tank. The light that gets absorbed into the glass will hit the second wall and will refect back into the tank. Then there will obviously be some light that will just pass through completely. It's the backgrounds that absorb the light, which limits it from being reflected by the glass. It's the PAR quality that is more important, not just the lumens. Blue backgrounds absorb less of the lighting than black.

 

I had several sheets of masonite laying around and cut a piece to desired the size. Had a cool blue color left over from my bedroom and painted it up on both sides in case some water got on it to keep it from saturating and separating. Then I just slid it back there and used 2 small wedge blocks to keep it tight against the glass. I have no external plumbing behind my tank so there were no issues with interference with other components. When I got my tank (it was used) it had some black paint on it and it appeared the salt water started leeching between the glass and paint and it looked like poo poo. I scraped it all off and contemplated repainting it but I just wanted to get that bad boy up and running. I can imagine it might be tough to change, clean, or fix once the tank was established. My tank sits about 2 inches from the wall and I don't like the look of a tank with massive ammounts of space behind them. I love the clean look of no plumbing and power chords. Although there is no escaping the powerhead issue, The chord is neatly concealed behind the cover. The glass did alter the overall color to a lighter shader of blue but it looks really good like the deep blue sea. I suppose if one was concerned with lighs absorbsion they could look into lighter colors, metalics, perhaps some chrome spray paint. Who knows how that would look? Bling Bling Baby!

 

if you have a glass tank you can use outmotive car paint from your auto part it last for ever just clean the surfes with acetone and spray away plus you can shoose a any color if you like blue theres a paint call star dust moon blue ... is a cobal blu with sky blue aridesen pear it is a sicking beuteful color ... plus if you dont like it just take it off .now for acrylicuse any time off paint you like but one is on you wont be able to take it out. or use a printed back ground they do make thos in soled colors.... well good lock with what ever you shoose

 

THen I should mirror the back glass?
Danny