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Tank background film for windowsill tank

Ajm200

Member
Joined
19 Feb 2010
Messages
531
Location
London
Hi,

I’m looking for some advice please from all you knowledgeable people who set up tanks all the time.

I have a tank on my windowsill that is heavily planted, dirted low tech tank on a north facing windowsill. The plants are growing well but it with the limited light (a desk lamp) and no co2 they are going to take their time to fill in and cover the background.

I added ember tetras but it’s hard to see them with the window, blinds, etc visible behind the tank.

The tank will eventually hold RCS, ember tetras and red ramshorn snails,

Off out tomorrow to get window film to stick on the tank. Should I go for ’old-fashioned’ black or frosted? The substrate is dark.

Would the fish be more colourful and more visible given their natural blackwater origin? Also, would dark be better than frosted for stopping ambient light from the window?

With very low tech lighting would frosted pick up the light from the lamp and make the tank seem less dark?

thanks in advance
 
I have a Nano in the window on a south facing wall. I went for black to try and cut out too much direct sunlight. Upto now all is going well. I also keep the window blinds tilted up over during the brightest part of the day.
 
Thanks. I’m going with black.

I did a very unscientific experiment. I put a dark covered book against the back from the tank and observed the fish. The embers continued to explore the whole tank. seemingly unphased by the change
.

Next I tried white polystyrene and they acted panicked. They started swimming against the flow, not exploring and looked far paler.

The embers have spoken. They want black

With alder cones and leaf litter black will probably look cleaner too
 
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