Painting aquarium background

Watched all these videos on YouTube on the “can’t mess this up” paint your aquarium background. Well, I’m doing something wrong. I just scraped it all off as it was going on terribly.
Attached is what I bought at the local hobby store. I didn’t have a smaller roller so I used a brush. Every time I went back to stroke out a nice even later of paint it was lifting paint up. Looked rubbish.
is this solely because I need to roll it on? I never thought this would be this hard.
I hope someone has run into this before. Oh and first coat I tried painting it with a foam brush. Went way worse. Let what was on ther dry then tried a bristle brush. Almost as bad and it kept pulled large areas of existing paint .
Please help

 

99 cent cans of black spray paint done in a well ventilated area.

 

As kallililly1973 said, black spray paint or this stuff. I used it. . . Goes on like spray paint and peels off if you want to change things up. Comes in blue and black.

 

I already have the tank indoors cycling. I really don’t want to have to worry about overspray in the dining room.

 

Ok so why use paint. If you can get some plastic sheet in the colour and size you need them all you need to do is paint some olive oil on the back and using a roller press the sheet to the back making sure you remove any bubbles of air and oil. Mine has been fine for years done that way. Also works with the plastic scenes that most LFS carry.

 

Or get a big enough piece of cardboard cut it to the size of the tank bring it outside and paint one side black and the other side a different color and hang it off the back of your tank and you can just remove and switch the look whenever you want to change it up a bit.

 

I used latex paint I got on the back of mine with a roller, On one of my tanks and came out awesome been done for a couple years now and I recently had to peel it off. Came off in one big sheet

Ok so why use paint. If you can get some plastic sheet in the colour and size you need them all you need to do is paint some olive oil on the back and using a roller press the sheet to the back making sure you remove any bubbles of air and oil. Mine has been fine for years done that way. Also works with the plastic scenes that most LFS carry.

I use cooking oil I bet olive oil is better though in the long run the cooking oil "dries" up and gets sticky but adheres backdrops perfect

 

I used latex paint I got on the back of mine with a roller, On one of my tanks and came out awesome been done for a couple years now and I recently had to peel it off. Came off in one big sheet


I use cooking oil I bet olive oil is better though in the long run the cooking oil "dries" up and gets sticky but adheres backdrops perfect

Either will work okay.

 

Go buy a piece of black construction paper/poster board, a roll of scotch tape and be done with it for the next 3-5 years.

 

I don't mind the idea of painting the back of a tank, but it's somewhat permanent and can be a pain to do. If you end up painting it, my recommendation is to use a roller and take it slowly.

I just use a simple background like a poster board and attach it with adhesive strips.