Picture, blue paint, or black paint for back of 46g tank?

Altohombre

I notice a lot of large tank owners use acrylic paint of either black or blue for their tank background. Is this because there are no pictures to fit the back of the tank or because the acrylic black or blue brings out the colors of the fish, rocks, and corals better? What is everyone's preference and which paints or picture do you use if that is your preference?

caferacermike

No set formula, just personal preference. In my case I think "backgrounds" are tacky. I prefer black to blue. Blue is supposed to leave you with the effect that the light is vanishing into the deep blue of the ocean. I kinda think that's a really long shot..... Black looks dramatic and makes the colors pop.

One "bizarre", not bizarre at all but very common now, is to use great stuff foam to fill cover the back of the tank, inside. After time it will purple over with coraline. I'm not real hip on it. I think some people go overboard with it, covering all the sides but the front. Looks unnatural. I've seen one person use it to cover up the bottom half, now that looked somewhat convincing. You'd still need to paint the back of the upper half.