Black background for back wall and sides?

[sally666]

I plan on painting the back, left and right sides of my glass tank the color black to hide the algae. If I only scrape the front window daily for algae, will the aquarium still look good after a period of time? Or will it look really ugly? Or should I make a 3d background out of cement/rock/artificial coral? I want to avoid scraping the sides and back panels in order to save time each day.

My tank will be a FOWLR with macroalgae.

 

[141918]

Not trying to come across as negative, but in my own experience, there will always be a time when every single part of any part of the entire surfaces in the tank will be riddled, or at least have some kind of algae or bacteria on it. This goes for sides, back, front, sand, powerhead, in tank filters etc. It all eventually accumulates on all surfaces. So realistically and eventually, all surfaces will required maintenance at some point.

If you are able to run a lower nutrient system, but still maintain the minimum nutrients to support bio diversity, cleaning the glass sides or back won't be a daily necessity.

 

[Red_Beard]

I painted mine black, i do not clean the back wall, i leave that as foraging grounds for my herbivores. It does not look bad, but it won't be that "pristine" look. Totally up to you.

 

[sally666]

Not trying to come across as negative, but in my own experience, there will always be a time when every single part of any part of the entire surfaces in the tank will be riddled, or at least have some kind of algae or bacteria on it. This goes for sides, back, front, sand, powerhead, in tank filters etc. It all eventually accumulates on all surfaces. So realistically and eventually, all surfaces will required maintenance at some point.

If you are able to run a lower nutrient system, but still maintain the minimum nutrients to support bio diversity, cleaning the glass sides or back won't be a daily necessity.

Yes I understand that algae and bacteria WILL grow everywhere on the tank if left unchecked. But the main reason why I want to paint the sides and back walls black is to let the algae grow there and to avoid scraping those three sides. This is to reduce daily maintenance. But my main question is, how ugly will the algae look on top of the black color? Will it be a distraction? Will it look natural? Will it look okay? I just don't want it to look disgusting (for example, like some sort of human skin lesion or skin disease).

 

[Bear22]

I would recommend using sign making vinyl in matte black with the adhesive backing. It's easy to do and the final results will likely be much more appealing to the eye.

 

[Red_Beard]

Yes I understand that algae and bacteria WILL grow everywhere on the tank if left unchecked. But the main reason why I want to paint the sides and back walls black is to let the algae grow there and to avoid scraping those three sides. This is to reduce daily maintenance. But my main question is, how ugly will the algae look on top of the black color? Will it be a distraction? Will it look natural? Will it look okay? I just don't want it to look disgusting (for example, like some sort of human skin lesion or skin disease).

That depends entirely on how many grazers(snails, fish urchins etc) you have. It can 100% look natural and not be at all a distraction.

 

[Ziggy17]

I would recommend using sign making vinyl in matte black with the adhesive backing. It's easy to do and the final results will likely be much more appealing to the eye.

+1
Painting the sides eventually looks awful and is way harder to switch should you ever change your mind.

 

[JumboShrimp]

The black paint will look great for a while; then will eventually look dull (as in dull-green), if you in fact don't scrape it no differently than the front glass. It's pretty much unavoidable. If I had to do it all over again-- for several reasons-- I would probably have gone with matte black vinyl instead of paint.

 

[grumpy-crab]

You can always do a GSP wall. If doing so start with multiple frags and glue them to the walls down low as it will want to grow up

 

[141918]

I did the black vinyl background. Used vegetable oil to stick it on. For myself, I like the black look as it gives alot of depth to the tank, making it look bigger than it really is, placebo. It also helps in not making the algae that does accumulate, not look so bad. However, when its cleaned, the tank looks magnificent.