Black Background on Reef Tank?

Here is mine painted with black plasti dip from Lowes. If you need to change it it scrapes off with a razor blade.

 

If its plastidip it should peel off in one chunk without the need for a razor. That stuff rocks.

 

i have both black and blue. The blue has more "depth" and looks like a shallow reef, and the black looks a bit darker/deeper and has great "pop" with the contrasting colors. Either looks great, black looks better if you keep it clean. I scrape my background clean to look better, some people like to let coralline grow.

 

I currently have a black painted 125g.

HOwever, after a while, very little black can still be seen b/c of all the growth on the back- mostly purple corilline. My Iphione pics and videos make it look blueish, but that's purple to the eye.

I"m thinking of going purple on my 180, or blue, or maybe the common black.
Also thinking about white!
I have a white plastic sheet that I can paint, istead of actulaly painting the tank this time.
I've seen dark window tint
dark acrylic sheets on the back, etc.

Skys the limit! Oh wait, does that mean blue? ;-)

 

I base my background color decision on what I plan on keeping. If i will be keeping mai ly darker colored fish i use blue and if I plan on keeping brightly colored fish I use black. I do this because the fish will pop out better on the different backgrounds. I went with blue on my 75 and 50 show. I liked it, but I feel black would have been a much ebtter choice to show colors of coral and fish better. You could, instead of painting or putting vinyl on the back, get a piece of thin black acrylic cut to fit between your bracesand after a whilw you don't like it you can easily swich it out for a blue one.

 

I just thought of this while reading your new tank thread. I have the same tank/brand in a 75gal. I left the back alone the glass is already getting covered in purple coralline algae. The black piece in the tank that covers the corner drill is also starting to get covered as well. So don't worry trying to match the black for that reason unless you plan on scrubbing the corner drill part to keep it black. My tank has been up and running since Sept 3rd this year.

 

Fantastic ideas! I think we might do a few practice runs with different colors on a poster board or plastic sheet or something like that.

I love my blue (I just took a picture of my 46 below...this is after 5 years), and I am a coralline-a-phobe! I like it on my rocks, but not on my walls! I also like the idea of black...I can see where it would really make the colored corals and fish pop out.

 

You could buy that cut to fit aquarium backing that most stores sell. Usually one side is black and the other blue. It can give you an idea on which color you prefer or you can even use it. If you get sick of one color, turn it over.

 

I used the 95% window tint you can buy at Walmart. Not the easiest to install and get all of the bubbles out, but once done it looks just as good as if it was painted and easier to remove.

 

That looks great! Wow, you sure do keep the coralline off the back wall