Don't paint your tank!

[geoff]

I tried to paint the back of my tank blue, this is the second time, the paint keeps separating from the glass no matter how long I give it between coats Arghhh! If anyone else is thinking about it I'd say, either lay your tank on it's side so the painted surface is flat or just buy a background.
Thought I'd share my grief.

 

[rmc]

I have painted two tanks so far and have had no problems. Try wiping down the glass with regular isopropyl rubbing alcohol. Then dry it with paper towels. I also use it when building sumps to silicone acrylic to glass inside the sump for dividers. Ive seen other posting here warning of only putting together like surfaces in sumps but this works well here also.

 

[goofieones]

I painted my tank back black. Use spray paint, like rustroleum (sp). Didn't have any problems with drips. Need like 3 coats.

 

[new2saltwater]

I did what RMC did and cleaned glass really good let dry then spray painted back panel Medium Blue gloss protective enamel. I put on around 4 to 5 coats and it looks good to me and the little fishies

 

[pufferlover]

As I have posted before I much prefer to use background on my tanks (personal opinion) since if I ever want to make a change I just get a new one. In all my years so far in salt I have the same backgrounds on my oldest tanks and they were installed with 2 sided tape along the top and sides to avoid water leaking between the plastic and glass (learned this the hard way after one of my fish splashed a tidal wave and made a mess of the background between glass and background). I like the plain old Penplax light blue graduated to dark blue.