Static cling black film for back glass?

[Sordfish]

I was thinking of putting on a static cling black window film on the back of my tank. I wanted to find out what your experiences are? I’ll not be able to reach the back once the tank is filled. Will it stay up for years? If not, any alternatives? Painting is not an option unfortunately.

 

[GaryE]

I have it on one of my tanks.. I put it on after the tank was in place and filled. Not exactly happy with how it came out, as I was not able to get it bubble free. However, it served it's purpose of blacking out the rear glass. It's now about 50% covered in coraline algae so I'm almost to the point of being able to remove it. Next time I'll just paint it before putting the tank in place.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I personally use Black construction pape from walmart which is water resistant and only 92 cents for a 30" X 30" sheet in 12 colors

 

[Ef4life]

I did it on my pico with a frosted clear cling. It’s full of bubbles, but for what I was doing it’s fine and looks how I want it too. You don’t really notice the bubbles much until your up close, black I would imagine would look bad

 

[Sordfish]

Thanks for the responses @Ef4life and @GaryE. Besides the bubbles, did the vinyl stay up for a long time for you? The worst would be for it to come off partially. I’d not be able to remove it and would look awful.

Does anyone know what aquarium manufacturers use? I know Red Sea and waterbox have a black film at the back but I can’t figure out what it is and how they attach it.

 

[Sordfish]

I personally use Black construction pape from walmart which is water resistant and only 92 cents for a 30" X 30" sheet in 12 colors

How do you attach it to the glass?

 

[JumboShrimp]

When you say "static cling," I used black-out film on a window in the tank room that I bought off Amazon. You spritz a little water on the glass to help pull out the bubbles. It worked pretty good, but when I seriously thought about using it on the back of the tank I could tell that because the tank is so big, I would have trouble matching up seams any which way I rolled it out; and cutting around the returns and overflow bulkheads was going to be even more of a nightmare. So I bought black Rustoleum (oil based enamel) and did 4 very thin coats with a 4" roller, letting each dry. Up. Down. Up. Down again. It came out great.

 

[Johnpaul86]

I use limo tint it works extremely well. You can see through from the back of the tank but from the front it looks black.

 

[vetteguy53081]

How do you attach it to the glass?

Clear tape

 

[Weasel1960]

Depending on how your tank is plumbed for equipment you could consider 1/16” thick black plastic sheeting come Home Depot, Lowe’s, etc.

 

[Ef4life]

Thanks for the responses @Ef4life and @GaryE. Besides the bubbles, did the vinyl stay up for a long time for you? The worst would be for it to come off partially. I’d not be able to remove it and would look awful.

Does anyone know what aquarium manufacturers use? I know Red Sea and waterbox have a black film at the back but I can’t figure out what it is and how they attach it.

I haven’t had it come off in the back, but on the side it has when cleaning the glass. It just resticks on with a little water and squeegee action. Have a rimmed tank helps a bit too as it can tuck underneath the plastic rims a little bit.

 

[Sordfish]

Depending on how your tank is plumbed for equipment you could consider 1/16” thick black plastic sheeting come Home Depot, Lowe’s, etc.

Thanks. I considered this but couldn’t figure out how to attach it to the glass.

There is nothing on the back glass - it is a rimless peninsula. I’ll be temporarily - for a couple of years - push it against the wall until the space is remodeled at which point it’ll be used as a peninsula. This is the reason I don’t want to paint - in my experience paint is hard to remove properly.

 

[cngh]

i used limo/black out cling film on an old 40breeder i had. worked and looked great, but it was easy because i did it when the tank was empty and i could lay it on its face when i applied the film. just spritz water w/ a tiny bit of soap on the glass (assuming the tank is empty...plain water if tank is full), lay the film, trim it to size, then use a squeegee or credit card and scrape the bubbles out the sides. super easy to remove when you no longer want/need it.

might also try contact paper, like for your cabinet shelves. they have black paper, just make sure the adhesive side is also black.

 

[Reefs and Geeks]

I've done this before, but used a bit of vegitable oil between the glass and the film. Held up great for a few years before I took it down. I even used a magnetic scraper over top of it almost every day.