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Good aquarium background

Wisey

Wisey

Member
Joined
19 Jul 2014
Messages
1,062
Hi All,

I currently have a frosted background on my aquarium which was basically a self adhesive window film that I picked up from Amazon. I'm not happy with it because I can see the metal bars of my light rail behind the aquarium, so I think a solid background is going to be more suitable.

Can anyone point me in the direction of a good quality background, preferably something that does not need gluing, or uses glue that is easily removed? I'm probably going to go for black, but may consider a solid white rather than frosted white.

I have seen a few cheap ones around that get poor reviews, so hoping someone can hook me up with a link to something that is decent please?

Thanks in advance!

Wisey.
 
I'll probably go with the foam board as looks much easier to cut to the actual size I need, plus I can just nip down to Hobycraft in town and pick up black or white without having to try and get it shipped. I guess it would be easy enough to attach it at the bottom as the substrate would hide anything you used to attach it. Would appreciate suggestions on cleanly mounting it flush with the glass though.
 
Hmmm, more thought required then. I can't mount to the wall as I have the light rail that goes up from the cabinet, behind the tank and up and I need to hide that. I guess I could always mount the board to the light rail which would mean I could leave a slight drip gap down the back. My tank is visible from the side when you enter the room though, so I could really do with a solution that looks neat and tidy rather than a board down the back. Maybe some sort of vinyl wrap would do it?
 
vinyl is what I'd go for! Looks pretty easy to apply, and people always seem to say "and easy to remove," although I've not seen any videos of people removing it. If you wanted to use foam like iain does, you could just make a couple of short inserts for the sides so the gap isn't visible
 
Thanks, that looks like a good option, Andy. Will give that a try if the one that arrived Saturday is not up to the job.
 
I paint the back glass of my tanks with can of Krylon.
Comes off fairly easy with razor blade scraper/elbow grease.
 
Wisey said:
I have ordered up a few feet of this:

http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/background-blueblack-per-12-p-1169.html

and this gel adhesive:

http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/seaview-gel-background-adhesive-p-2799.html

It's not that expensive, so thought I would give it a try and see how it goes. Will report back once I have tried it.
Click to expand...


To feedback on what I used above, it was fine for a while, but eventually started to peel away at the sides and refuses to stick back down, even with more of the adhesive.

I'm about to rescape that tank and have bought new film to try myself:

http://activewindowfilms.co.uk/tota...window-tinting-tint-film-51-76-100-152cm.html
 
LED light panels in all sorts of sizes for low ££ on a google search. I imagine would work well with a frosted background, the blue graduation on the ADA one could be replicated by a specialist acetate printer.
 
Barbara Turner said:
without re-mortgaging the house
Click to expand...

Yup!! Easily!.. But maybe easy to say for me.. How are your DIY skills? That's the first most important question.

Next how is you tank situated?

Do you have some room behind it to work?

Than if so. Frosted window film on the back of your tank.

Than take led strip DC 12 volt, flexible is ok.. No need for high performance.. It needs to cover the lenght of the tank

Take a white colored light from above and an RGB from bellow. Simply put the rgb on the cabinet behind the tank at bottom level.

Fix a way to mount a white colored light led strip to the top if the bak panel. This is where the diy comes looking..

If you manage this, the rest is peanuts. You need a controller/timer like <TC420>

The white light is controlled with 1 channel..

The RGB with 3 channels..

Now the white (sun from above) is simply always white in intensity you control it.. The RGB from bellow can be set to display any color RGB is able to display from below.

https://www.december.com/html/spec/colorper.html

This way you control color from bellow with light.. In a multitude of colors RGB light mix has to offer.. No need for paint, just a frosted back and a colored light.

Since white comes from above and colored from bellow and intensity in your own prefered choosing it can look anyway you like. In a very natural way :thumbup:

https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/my-first-3-of-life.38484/#post-417164
 
I like the idea of using leds at top at bottom, what you really need in between is a light guide plate.

light-guide3.jpg
I wonder what is inside a broken led TV..

The cheap solution if you weren't worried about the light would be to get something printed.

I came across a link on ebay that reckons they can print on 180gsm matt finish polypropylene, slight surprise as I thought nothing stuck to pp apart from pp

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Waterpro...-board-Snapframe-A4-A3-A2-A1-A0-/200955789960
 
zozo said:
Yup!! Easily!.. But maybe easy to say for me.. How are your DIY skills? That's the first most important question.

Next how is you tank situated?

Do you have some room behind it to work?

Than if so. Frosted window film on the back of your tank.

Than take led strip DC 12 volt, flexible is ok.. No need for high performance.. It needs to cover the lenght of the tank

Take a white colored light from above and an RGB from bellow. Simply put the rgb on the cabinet behind the tank at bottom level.

Fix a way to mount a white colored light led strip to the top if the bak panel. This is where the diy comes looking..

If you manage this, the rest is peanuts. You need a controller/timer like <TC420>

The white light is controlled with 1 channel..

The RGB with 3 channels..

Now the white (sun from above) is simply always white in intensity you control it.. The RGB from bellow can be set to display any color RGB is able to display from below.

https://www.december.com/html/spec/colorper.html

This way you control color from bellow with light.. In a multitude of colors RGB light mix has to offer.. No need for paint, just a frosted back and a colored light.

Since white comes from above and colored from bellow and intensity in your own prefered choosing it can look anyway you like. In a very natural way :thumbup:

https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/my-first-3-of-life.38484/#post-417164
Click to expand...
Thread bump :lol::lol: I'm glad I stumbled across this thread. Sorry to original thread poster for hijacking but gotta question on this for @zozo. I'm wanting to go frosted background and will love to try this LED strip method too behind the tank. Question is this method is used in addition to the main tank lights right? So this is set up and used as well as the main tank lights?
 
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