Paint or Vinyll

Hey everyone. So before i put water in my 200 I need to do something to the sides and the back. (it's an in wall tank) so my question is did you guys and gals use vinyl or paint for the backs of your tanks. Also what was your color of choice? Black? Blue?

 

I prefer vinyl over paint for the simple reason its easier to remove then paint,if you want to ever change it up.Prefer Black over blue.

 

I painted my tank. Rustoleum brand, color royal blue

 

personal i like paint because it will never bubble and look ugly and i like black because it creates a high contrast between the black and the floresent corals and purple coraline algea

 

I'd go paint and a very dark blue, but not total black. You still get the contrast without the starkness of the black.

 

black roll on paint with a foam roller. its easy and looks great.

 

I spray painted solid black. Rustoleom as well. Black made my overflows disappear. That was the deciding factor for me over blue lol. I also like the way it makes caves seem to never end.

Color is all personal preference though.

 

I've done both over the years. I prefer vinyl, not glued to the back but just hanging, especially if the tank is in-wall...here's why:

If your tank is in-wall, chances are you will want to see what' sgoing on back there at some point, with vinyl, you could easily lift it up.

If you just use a few pieces of duct-tape and glue it to the tank's plastic edging and just let the vinyl hang, you don't have to worry about the bubbles, also with this approach, the vinyl don't appear shiny when viewing from the front of the tank, it almost disappears into the background giving the appearance of more depth. Even royal blue looks darker with this approach.

Of course paint looks neat, but if the tank is in-wall, it doesn't matter and at least with vinyl you could lift it up to view the back of the tank if you ever need to check things out back there....take a look at the pic in my avatar, that's a bright blue vinyl background hung about 1/8" off the back glass (it's not touching), it looks much darker. If I press that same vinyl up against the glass, it's bright blue and looks ugly.

just my 2cents.

 

Thanks for the responses!! So I went paint for a couple reasons. The bubbles would drive me crazy. Did not think about hanging it just off the tank as map95003 suggested. And also because I am on day 4 of my tank swap and did not have time to drive the hour to My LFS. K+ to all for the opinions!