Background colors for tanks

vlangel · 2026-09-08T20:28:32-0400

saltwaterfish.com said:
Beautiful mural, love how it looks with the tank.

Thank you! I used to keep seahorses so its my remembrance of that season of my aquaria, although seadragons are a bit more exotic than regular seahorses, LOL.

vlangel · 2026-09-08T20:29:45-0400

Desidoop said:
That is gorgeous

Thank you!

Michael Hughes · 2026-09-08T22:13:26-0400

My goal with any background is to increase the illusion of depth, so black is my go-to for freshwater tanks (mainly because I prefer blackwater tanks, and that color background makes it seem like the tank goes on forever).

Our 125 g reef tank is about 4" away from the wall, so I went with no background, instead opting to paint the wall behind a natural looking light tan / off white color. As long as the back glass is clean, it gives the illusion of a deeper tank than it actually is. Now I just need to paint the bottom ends of the light mounts so they disappear.