Aquarium backgrounds...tacky or not?

[Sigmund]

3 tanks. One peninsula with painted black background. Large reef with blue shower curtain background. Seahorse tank with new Backlight LED. Have had a lot of fun with it. Got it from Current USA. Try that if want something more fun. For the record, not a fan of picture design backgrounds.

 

[Fish Think Pink]

So I’m trying to decide if I should use a tank background on my main tank and possibly even my sump (I’ll explain later). I used to see these for sale in almost every LFS. There was your classic black or blue, some plants tank scene and of course your coral reef background. With the exception of the black or blue background I always thought they were kinda tacky and didn’t help the overall look of the tank. Of course living in 2021, you can customize anything and I did find a company online that has tons of custom images available that did catch my eye and maybe think twice. Also another plus is you send them your size info and the image is already adjusted and cut to exact size which is nice. I’m highly considering using one on the back of my sump because it will act as a “blind” to hide the array of cords that will be tucked behind it (in the tank I’m building the sump will be visible at all times thru the glass door of the cabinet...I’ve always found the inner workings of things to be fascinating and won’t be hiding them on my current tank build) let me know what you think! I’m a zoa lover at heart...here’s a couple backgrounds for my main tank I’m considering...

+1 vote for background to hide cords, etc. Feel cords are tacky!

Personal taste dictates here... for me, not competing with my tank was important - didn't want a colorful background that looked better than anything inside tank. Went with aqua blue that has light shimmering, like you would see if scuba diving in a clean sand area.

 

[Trouble1375]

Not t

Rue. My 135 is 2 years old now. Has no algae but a film on it. I cant grow algae in my tank other thsn diatoms. Lol

Our 125 is almost 2 years old now. The only algae is the GHA on the ATS in the sump. Glad I picked up the nice blue background because it's what we see behind all our aqua-scaping. In desperation I glue a frag (rather large one) of GSP to the bottom of the back wall to see if it will grow up the glass. Everyone complains about GSP taking over and Xenia running rampant. Xenia melt in our tank and GSP doesn't ever get any bigger than it is when we buy it.

We do have 3 rock boring urchins that do a fabulous job of cleaning everything and it's my understanding that they eat coralline also. You can always see where they have been munching at. We started with 2 and they must have successfully bred and had one baby survive because we now have 3 and one is much smaller than the other 2.

 

[MichaelReefer]

Personally I've never liked them.

 

[ClearRain]

So the biggest take away I got from reading all the responses was...just do you. So that’s what I did! I know the image won’t last long because of coralline but I had a local graphics shop print me an image on transparent vinyl for both my tank and my sump. I plan to LED backlight the tank so the image will really pop...for about 6 months lol

Image I chose for the tank -

My blank tank

Image applied like window tint!

Tank with a flash light behind it for demonstration

Image I picked for the sump

My empty 10 Gallon sump

Image applied!

I like them. They're simple and won't distract from what's in the tank. I also like the translucency, very cool idea. I have blue on the back of my 40 breeder FW, had a cool blue gradient on my 54 before I had to break it down, and just let the coralline cover the back in most other reef tanks lol

 

[SaltISlife]

Our 125 is almost 2 years old now. The only algae is the GHA on the ATS in the sump. Glad I picked up the nice blue background because it's what we see behind all our aqua-scaping. In desperation I glue a frag (rather large one) of GSP to the bottom of the back wall to see if it will grow up the glass. Everyone complains about GSP taking over and Xenia running rampant. Xenia melt in our tank and GSP doesn't ever get any bigger than it is when we buy it.

We do have 3 rock boring urchins that do a fabulous job of cleaning everything and it's my understanding that they eat coralline also. You can always see where they have been munching at. We started with 2 and they must have successfully bred and had one baby survive because we now have 3 and one is much smaller than the other 2.

Sounds like your tabk is alot like mine. Mine has that shower curtain i taped in the back with dolphins and other reef stuff on it. I enjoy looking at that. But maybe 8 months ago i glued green star polyps like you to the back. Its grown fairly fast but i need to split it and glue it to other spots in the back to get the whole back like that.

Unfortunatly were noving.. so i gatta tear down my entire tank and its 100+ types of corals... luckily ny friend is going to allow me to put a 92g corner bowfront i have in her house and i gatta move everything in my 135 to the 92g. Itll be crammed but at least i dont have to sell or give my near 9000$ investment away..

 

[PeterZammetti]

Personally I think an all black background looks super clean. Really makes any color you have on your tank pop. So I guess that is a background and I’d have a black before I had clear or other solid colors or a mixed background. Highly recommend

Home Depot Behr paint ask for wet cement. Gray (Like battleship grey) Makes UV amazing at night and cuts down on fish fighting themselves in the glass reflection. Water based so if you don't like you can scrape off.