to paint or not to paint?

[scubagal8]

Hi. I have a 125 gallon - the classic 72" long rectangle tank with two overflows. I am leaning toward painting the back of the tank but would love to know if there is any downside to painting it? The tank is so large that once I get it in place, I'll never be able to move it, so I want to make a good choice.
thanks for your time and any suggestions you may have.
Lori

 

[reefwiser]

No down side you are just stuck with the color. Most saltwater tank choose black as a background color. You use to see blue back grounds too. But today most choose black.

 

[Flux Capacitor]

My first “large tank” was a 90 gallon Coner Flow. I painted the back black, and couldn’t have been happier. I now have a reefer 525 and it comes blacked out, however if I was doing a tank again that wasn’t I would paint it without hesitation.

 

[SKMoss]

Wish more responses were here. I have 150 and am considering not painting it black on the back. The wall behind is a dark tan, mid brown color. My default plan is to just paint black and be done with it, but there’s a thought in my mind to choose to be different here..

 

[billyocean]

I did mine dark blue..almost did black but the rest of my tanks are black. I dig the blue.

 

[SeaJay]

I’ve got a 6’ 135 and one of my biggest regrets is not painting the back. No way to do it now without a massive amount of work. I hung a piece of black curtain behind it, and it looked good for the first year or two, then a little dust and salt creep started to show. I will NEVER not paint the back of a tank again.

 

[Gemdora]

Wish more responses were here. I have 150 and am considering not painting it black on the back. The wall behind is a dark tan, mid brown color. My default plan is to just paint black and be done with it, but there’s a thought in my mind to choose to be different here..

 

[Gemdora]

I did mine in black. Left me flat. Did it in blues and love it!

 

[Jeffcb]

Just dark. Its going to get covered anyway.

 

[tgcreef]

Paint it, no salt creep visible

 

[NigelRichardson]

Had my tank custom made with back and left hand side made with “Black glass”. Stunning finish. Love it.

Unless you have a tank viewable from the back I would absolutely recommend a black background - makes fish and corals “pop” against the contrasting back.

 

[garbled]

Anyone ever paint in other colors? Like purple? Yellow? Florescent green? I wonder how those would look in different lighting...

 

[albano]

Salt tanks since ‘73 ... personal taste, but blue seems much brighter to me ... but no need to paint it, buy stick on vinyl

 

[davidcalgary29]

Anyone ever paint in other colors? Like purple? Yellow? Florescent green? I wonder how those would look in different lighting...

I feel like I saw this on an episode of Skin Wars. No, wait -- I did! I think that special fluorescing paints could be used for very cool detailing in specialty tanks. Everyone wants a "naturalistic" reef tank, but there's no reason you couldn't do a "city" tank with aquarium-friendly bricks instead of coral, with flourescing paint for graffiti, and macro for weeds in the "pavement". Okay, that's not to my taste, either, but it'd look cool until the tank grew out.

 

[Familyman2010]

Hi. I have a 125 gallon - the classic 72" long rectangle tank with two overflows. I am leaning toward painting the back of the tank but would love to know if there is any downside to painting it? The tank is so large that once I get it in place, I'll never be able to move it, so I want to make a good choice.
thanks for your time and any suggestions you may have.
Lori

Can paint or use the darkest car tint you can find. I did double 5% black car tint and it’s blacked out

 

[garbled]

Everyone wants a "naturalistic" reef tank, but there's no reason you couldn't do a "city" tank with aquarium-friendly bricks instead of coral

Yeah, I'm working on plans for a desktop pico, and trying to think out of the box a little. Trying to come up with alternate fun colors, or internal deco that has a little character... I dunno.. maybe I'll get a pack of vinyl sheets and do some color samples once I get the lighting worked out... ha. fun idea!

 

[DStecz]

Anyone ever paint in other colors? Like purple? Yellow? Florescent green? I wonder how those would look in different lighting...

I did a lot of my freshwater tanks with "stained glass" window cling...... You can get a lot of color patterns and designs on Amazon. It looked awesome especially after the plants grew in and it was just little peeks of color behind it. I'm not sure I would do it for saltwater though, I would be afraid of salt getting between the film and glass

 

[garbled]

My thought would be to use the vinyl sheets to just get an idea of the color with the lights on, and then paint the back.. it's a pico, so it's cheap to swap around for testing..

 

[tgcreef]

Paint the back, salt creep is super annoying to deal with on the back glass

 

[Specific Ocean]

Paint It, Black