MandarinFish

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For my new system, I would like to have a back wall that looks like coral rocks, or pretty much anything other than black / blue acrylic with splotches of coralline algae on it.

I'm trying very, very hard to keep a natural look in an artificial box, hiding my devices and returns, going without poewrheads, etc.

Any ideas? I fear gluing a layer of coral rubble on the back wall may look absurd. But it may not. Not sure.

I can't be the first one to consider this.

Any ideas?
 
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Anonymous

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I wouldn't bother because I think the coralline covered wall looks more natural and more importantly, doesn't call any attention to itself and does not take up space in the tank.

Gluing stuff to the walls, IMO, makes the tank look more like a box because it defines the space rather than fading in to not noticableness.

Does that make sense?
 
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Anonymous

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You could try one of those plastic type of tank backgrounds that has a reef design on it? Or if you have any artisitic talent paint it on yourself, just remembering you have to layer everything backwards.
 

darcitananda

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I got, at LFS, some blue mylar-like stuff that you buy by the foot. It is deep blue fading to lighter (but still deep) blue. I love it because it looks exactly like when I was snorkeling in Belize at a place called Hol Chan, where there is a huge reef and then there is a big drop off that just looks out into the open sea and it's an incredible deep blue color in the channel.
 

MandarinFish

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Thanks guys.

I thought I could mount some frags onto the back wall if I had anchoring points.

One guy on RC has a tank where he keeps the backsplash black then scrapes the coralline off. That seems higher maintenance, but doesn't draw attention to the back wall.

I've seen the pre-fab rock back walls in freshwater tanks for cichlids. I think those look convincingly natural, but protrude a bit much for my tastes since real estate is at a premium.

I can rockscape backwards and since I'm getting a deep (not tall) tank, maybe I can create some illusion that way.

I just find coralline on blue or black to look super fake.

Darci - any chance you have a link to that stuff? I could get a clear back then mount it. I'd still have to scrape coralline, but that would still be more elegant than fake plastic blue.

I'm still stuck with no DSB, since I'm going to point a lot of flow towards the bottom to keep detritus in suspension. I love the look of sand, but don't want scratches and a detritus buildup.

Any ideas on that? Maybe a thin layer of crushed coral?
 

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