Clean your back walls!

[CMMorgan]

I have a patch of Green Star Polyps attached to the back, and slowly spreading.

I'd love to know if there are others.

--Gray

That is my goal! I had an amazing colony of GSP going for a few years. It started to grow along the back of my tank all on it's own. Then.... my tank crashed and I lost it. It's on my bucket list to just glue some gsp frags here and there and let em go crazy. I know there are a few GSP colors out there... mint, neon... maybe I'll venture into purple or blue sympodium and see if I can create an abstract "velvet" painting on the back. I think if I start low enough, I can manage to keep them out of the coast to coast overflow teeth.

 

[Jeffcb]

I like it. Dang more work.

 

[JSR]

Flipper Platinum Aquarium scraper is best I have used. Replace blades with credit cards

 

[AlexKintner]

I think it looks better. I like the clean look.

My tank is running 10 plus years. I have trained my snails to stay on the back wall all the time ;Happy

@Mastiffsrule doing some snail training...

 

[Fishinabarrel]

I like the clean black look. And I have been an advocate for the coralline look since 2007. What did you find worked best for cleaning the glass? Just standard scraper and elbow grease?

 

[Nanorock1970]

That is my goal! I had an amazing colony of GSP going for a few years. It started to grow along the back of my tank all on it's own. Then.... my tank crashed and I lost it. It's on my bucket list to just glue some gsp frags here and there and let em go crazy. I know there are a few GSP colors out there... mint, neon... maybe I'll venture into purple or blue sympodium and see if I can create an abstract "velvet" painting on the back. I think if I start low enough, I can manage to keep them out of the coast to coast overflow teeth.

Checked out that you have a new tank build. I asked in the past out here about sympodium on the back glass and didn't really get any good answers. I also would like to use some sympodium and GSP on my tank glass. Have you found anyone with the sympodium on the glass? My thoughts are that it will do ok since it is similarly "invasive" like GSP (hardy,,,LOL).

 

[CMMorgan]

Checked out that you have a new tank build. I asked in the past out here about sympodium on the back glass and didn't really get any good answers. I also would like to use some sympodium and GSP on my tank glass. Have you found anyone with the sympodium on the glass? My thoughts are that it will do ok since it is similarly "invasive" like GSP (hardy,,,LOL).

Hey, @Nanorock1970 ... I have not found too many folks using the back glass as a carpet. I did see someone that did the whole back glass in zoas. That was bonkers. I'm not that ambitious. I've narrow down those as colorful and hard to kill. I'm trying to avoid having it all one color. Looking for a nice abstract, not a putting green.

 

[Nanorock1970]

Hey, @Nanorock1970 ... I have not found too many folks using the back glass as a carpet. I did see someone that did the whole back glass in zoas. That was bonkers. I'm not that ambitious. I've narrow down those as colorful and hard to kill. I'm trying to avoid having it all one color. Looking for a nice abstract, not a putting green.

I have seen a lot of GSP, I have seen some encrusting corals that folks have glued to the tank sides and done well. I love the look of sympodium but would like it not on my live rock and my back wall is always less than desired by the family even though I would love to just let the coralline algae grow on it and scrape off the ugly non coralline. I do have some GSP on an island and I am sure I could get that going on the back glass though I rather do something different from what most folks do.

 

[S.Pepper]

That is my goal! I had an amazing colony of GSP going for a few years. It started to grow along the back of my tank all on it's own. Then.... my tank crashed and I lost it. It's on my bucket list to just glue some gsp frags here and there and let em go crazy. I know there are a few GSP colors out there... mint, neon... maybe I'll venture into purple or blue sympodium and see if I can create an abstract "velvet" painting on the back. I think if I start low enough, I can manage to keep them out of the coast to coast overflow teeth.

Yup, luv the look of GSP on the back wall. I've got several heads growing now. And the best part is if u get tired of it you can scrape it off without any problems.

 

[Chrysemys]

I regularly clean my back glass, but the dang plastic overflow boxes in my tank are miserable to clean. So I get this look of clean glass with two monstrosities of half clean/streaked plastic nastiness. Any advice for cleaning those? When I use a scraper if I am not careful I am whittling pieces of plastic off.
BTW I get mostly a greenish “coralline” (I am calling it that because it is a calcifying algae of some type) not the pretty purple stuff y’all are dealing with. A wall of green/gray isn’t near as nice to just let go. Or I would probably go for the the solid purple wall.

 

[S.Pepper]

Welp, I cleaned off my back wall today during my weekly water change. While I had some coralline algae, I also had as much green/brown algae. Regardless, seeing a clean back wall is really nice, and i should say preferable. Here's a few pics.

Yeah, it would have helped to have a few before pics, but trust me, it's looking so much better.

 

[JayLu]

A clean back wall does look good. However, I have taken a different approach and actually encourage various colors of plating type corals to grow on the back walls. I also glue corals to the plastic overflow box. I figure why not use the real estate.