3D looking background?

[yhbae]

I visited LFS today and found an interesting effect. For a moment, I thought they mis-taped a background as I saw a bulge when I looked at the back of the tank. Interestingly, this was an mbuna tank with rocks and the background picture was also large rocks. By doing this, it created some space between the glass and the picture in the middle region of the tank and created somewhat 3D like effect.

Has anyone tried this? It looks alot better than I thought it would be...

 

[David]

Cool idea. I might try that.

 

[Puffer_freak]

You can getones which you put inside and they seem to be a waste of space, take up half the tank!

 

[yhbae]

You can getones which you put inside and they seem to be a waste of space, take up half the tank!

Don't like those for the reason you have specified already. It significantly reduces the capacity of the tank which to me, kid of defeats the purpose of having a large tank in the first place...

 

[Puffer_freak]

My point exactly. IMO it looks great, but not good enough to sacrifce half my tank over it, BTW, what happens if a fish gets stuck behind it, which I think it probably could, if it jumped when you were doing something and got behind the thing, how would you know?

 

[yhbae]

No idea...

 

[Puffer_freak]

I have this funny feeling that someone may do one of three things...
1) Flame us all and prove us wrong
2) Tell us how
3) Turn this into a huge rant

Uh oh...

 

[yhbae]

Well, I did quite a bit of reading on creating DIY background using styrofoames, torch and some concrete. I did consider it but probably not in the near future - it looks like awful lot of work.

Here are some pictures:

I should be crediting someone, but I forgot where I got these from...

I'm looking for something that is a little easier and looks better than a simple black background (using a garbage bag in my case!)

 

[Puffer_freak]

I suppose you coul make a stylish one (though that last picture looks like that tank is the equivalent to a modern minimalist apatment) that sticks out less, but as you said, that would be hard.

You could try that one you saw, although I would imagine it is expensive, I myself went for the totally minimalist completely plain blue! This suits my tank better than anything else would!

 

[David]

I've got a plain black background in my tank, it really contrasts the fish's colours, especially the clown loaches and platies with their brilliant black and orange coloration up against the background. I wish I could get some tiger barbs in there, that would look so awesome. Too bad they're so aggressive.

 

[mwm]

yhbae ur tank is amazing i LOVE the rock mountian man thats awesome!

 

[kaley822]

its not his

 

[littleme1969]

Don't you just love it when poeple post without reading through all the posts first

But I will admit it looks kinda cool.. stick alot of plants and some wood in there and you've cracked it

 

[yhbae]

yhbae ur tank is amazing i LOVE the rock mountian man thats awesome!

As kaley822 said, the picture I posted isn't mine...

It is something I'd like to try when I build 80g from scratch, but that's months away - I have tonnes of other things I need to do before getting to that point...

I do have alot of rocks in my mbuna tank (see my 30g picture), and I thought a nice background would complement it nicely...