Swap Aquarium background?

seastar · Jul 23, 2016

I have a background that came in blue on one side, black on the other. I have had the blue up for the last year, but I'm thinking about changing it to the black side. (I love the balck bg on the readsea tanks and Im starting the think it makes the corals/fish pop more). The trouble is my tank is within 2 inches of the wall so it would be a tight squeeze to get behind there. I used olive oil to apply it the first time and a credit card to smooth out the bubbles. This was when the tank was empty and I have a ton of space to work with of course.

Anyone have any ideas on how to swap it to the other side without having a ton of bubble between the background and the glass?

saltyfilmfolks · Jul 23, 2016

Get or make a squeegee. Like for window washing.

seastar · Jul 23, 2016

saltyfilmfolks said:
Get or make a squeegee. Like for window washing.

Good call, and I realized after I created his thread it's probably a little ridiculous of a thing to ask but I was hoping maybe someone had gone through it and might have had a plan of attack. I have a razor scrapper that I ended up using to get the majority of the bubbles out. I will probably do another round tomorrow. Thanks for your reply

melypr1985 · Jul 23, 2016

I would just leave it blue. It wont be long before it's all covered in coraline algae anyway.... if you like that look that is.

Broadfield · Jul 23, 2016

seastar said:
(I love the black back on the Red Sea tanks and Im starting to the think it makes the corals/fish pop more)

LOL, I recently ripped that black background off of my Red Sea Reefer. I think no background gives it a much better sense of depth. It also allows even distribution of light to the back portion of the tank. Because now the light reflects off of the wall instead of being absorbed by the black film.

IMG_6832 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

seastar · Jul 25, 2016

melypr1985 said:
I would just leave it blue. It wont be long before it's all covered in coralline algae anyway.... if you like that look that is.

I'm crazy about cleaning the back glass. I don't really like the coralline on glass look. I need to clean my overflow badly...

seastar · Jul 25, 2016

Broadfield said:
LOL, I recently ripped that black background off of my Red Sea Reefer. I think no background gives it a much better sense of depth. It also allows even distribution of light to the back portion of the tank. Because now the light reflects off of the wall instead of being absorbed by the black film.

IMG_6832 by Toby Broadfield, on Flickr

This is my dream tank. Expect me to rip off everything you did. They say imitation is the best form of flattery right?

seastar · Jul 25, 2016

Just for the heck of it, photos of each state. With my friends and family blue is winning by a landslide. I really like the black though. The little dots ( that are way more apparent on the black one) I think are tiny barnacles. Im looking into that now, but they're little hard things that I need to scrape off constantly.