Do you clean the back glass?

mpjmeyer · Jan 17, 2018

My tank is a 65 gallon in wall corner tank. Before installing the tank into wall, I painted the back and side glass black as the room it sits in is considered my fish room/storage area. Anyway, I rarely clean the back glass off as I'm trying to build up coralline in the tank. When I look at photos of other tanks, it appears they always have coralline on the back wall or some other sort of algae built up. Should I be cleaning my back walls?

Webslinger · Jan 17, 2018

It depends on if you like what it looks like. It has no benefit either way. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Greybeard · Jan 17, 2018

Um... No choice :)

andrewkw · Jan 17, 2018

If you want your tank to look nice, scrape the back. I'm not saying your tank can't look nice with a coraline or algae covered back. What I am saying is any tank regardless of what corals / rock / fish are in it will look better with a clean back. Most "tank of the month" quality tanks have a clean back. You can say your tank isn't nor will it ever be that quality, but if you scrape the back you've just improved the look. Regardless it's not permanent if you scrape the back it will come back. If you don't believe me give it a go.

gcarroll · Jan 17, 2018

andrewkw said:
If you want your tank to look nice, scrape the back. I'm not saying your tank can't look nice with a coraline or algae covered back. What I am saying is any tank regardless of what corals / rock / fish are in it will look better with a clean back. Most "tank of the month" quality tanks have a clean back. You can say your tank isn't nor will it ever be that quality, but if you scrape the back you've just improved the look. Regardless it's not permanent if you scrape the back it will come back. If you don't believe me give it a go.

Once you get to 5+ years of healthy acro growth, cleaning the back glass just isn't happening! Most of those tanks that people go crazy over (TOTM quality) aren't much more than 2-3 years old.

CoralWealth · Jan 17, 2018

I left my back wall go for a year of not scrapping at all, it was covered in coralline and I was fine with the look but everyone else always thought it was dirty (they dont know what coralline algae is)

So last night I scraped it all off, took a long time (my tank is 180 gallons) and wow can I say it looks sooooo much better with a clean black back, I will try my hardest to stay up on this and keep the back wall clean. I think it looks a lot more slick and when looking at the tank, the corals seem to pop more with the black back

SPR1968 · Jan 17, 2018

When I first started out I was learning and thought it was good to leave the back glass dirty with the algea build up etc. Food for the fish etc.

At the end of the day it’s personal choice. My personal choice is to keep it clean which takes the effort of scraping it slightly every few weeks and that’s it. I just think it gives depth to the tank. If you keep ontop of it it’s very easy.

I have a few picture below were you can easily see the difference...

Glass Cleaned

Today

Sea MunnKey · Jan 17, 2018

gcarroll said:
Once you get to 5+ years of healthy acro growth, cleaning the back glass just isn't happening! Most of those tanks that people go crazy over (TOTM quality) aren't much more than 2-3 years old.

gcarroll .... You got that right!!

Sea MunnKey · Jan 17, 2018

This has been in the back of my mind for quite sometime now ... I've got old & torn down sliding glass frames which I'm thinking of cutting to fit the back of my tank's clear glass panel (back against the pastel orange coloured wall). Not sure if it's a good idea but at least I can see what's on the "other side" of my rocks ;Watching

madweazl · Jan 17, 2018

I keep the back clean as it helps to add depth to an otherwise, fairly narrow tank. It also provides a lot of contrast and draws your eyes back to the aquascape and corals instead getting lost in the background. In my case, it's fairly easy to maintain because the aquascape is roughly the same distance from the glass on all sides. I do leave a small patch behind the left side for the snails to munch on. I keep everything fairly tidy and clean the visible sump walls as well.

GoVols · Jan 17, 2018

I scrub the back glass down once a week during my water change.

Used to be covered in coralline but my wife complained :D about not having contrast between the fish and the coralline in open water.

:)

wowkingjames · Jan 17, 2018

Does look better.

Ds04384 · Jan 17, 2018

Can always do a rock wall and then you don't need to worry about it

Ryan Kouns · Jan 17, 2018

madweazl said:
I keep the back clean as it helps to add depth to an otherwise, fairly narrow tank. It also provides a lot of contrast and draws your eyes back to the aquascape and corals instead getting lost in the background. In my case, it's fairly easy to maintain because the aquascape is roughly the same distance from the glass on all sides. I do leave a small patch behind the left side for the snails to munch on. I keep everything fairly tidy and clean the visible sump walls as well.

are you using black sand?
big thumbs up!

madweazl · Jan 17, 2018

Ryan Kouns said:
are you using black sand?
big thumbs up!

I do (Nature's Ocean); I mainly use it because the shrimp gobies stand out better against the black sand.

Sea MunnKey · Jan 19, 2018

Sea MunnKey said:
This has been in the back of my mind for quite sometime now ... I've got old & torn down sliding glass frames which I'm thinking of cutting to fit the back of my tank's clear glass panel (back against the pastel orange coloured wall). Not sure if it's a good idea but at least I can see what's on the "other side" of my rocks ;Watching

"I've got old & torn down sliding glass frames" was meant to be mirror instead of glass ... duuhh ;Bored

boozeman27 · Jan 19, 2018

Not only do I clean my back glass, I peeled the black vinyl off of it. I like the see through look.

Coronus · Jan 19, 2018

Yes! For me, it looks so much better. It adds depth to the tank. I hated looking at coralline algae spots and green algae. Makes the tank look dirty.
I have a magfloat magnet with Velcro on the top and bottom then I have this guy that had Velcro on the clasp. I put the magnet on the back wall and use this behind the tank to move and clean the back wall. Velcro keeps them together. I had a few of these over the years. A lot of them are not made well. This I bought at Walgreens about 6 years ago and is well built. This does NOT go in the water.