Step One: Purple!

Hey guys,

I've done a search here on the ins / outs of painting the back of one's tank and read through those posts - (a small but brilliant trove of threads, thanks!). However, I didn't see one topic covered and I'm left wondering. Here's the deal:

I'm painting the 'back' of my 27 gallon cube a deep, dark purple, as part of a design plan for the aquascape:




I'll roll latex house paint in 4-5 coats on the side that'll face the wall, which'll hide the outlet & cords and provide a great backdrop to my design:




With set up and scaping, it'll be at least a month before this tank sees water, and time after that for cycling, so there's plenty of time for the paint to cure, no worries.

What I'm wondering is this - does paint finish make a difference? Most everything I read inside / outside FishLore mentions either gloss or flat (usually referring to black). Wondering if any of you have seen or experimented with the differences in how different finishes look w/the water, say satin or semi-gloss? Would any provide a different look / tone to a painted backdrop?

Being mindful of what I'm doing, I'd like to get the finish right w/what I have in mind for this tank.

As always, thanks for the input & expertise - it's sincerely appreciated!

 

The paint will appear to be a gloss viewing from the front of the tank because of the glass.

 

I used a flat black on mine

 

The paint will appear to be a gloss viewing from the front of the tank because of the glass.

LoL - oh man, that's brilliant. Never even occurred to me.

Thanks max, for pointing out the obvious. Hope you were chuckling when you answered that. I would've been.

Tigg, suddenly wondering about that 'no stupid questions' thing.

 

LoL - oh man, that's brilliant. Never even occurred to me.

Thanks max, for pointing out the obvious. Hope you were chuckling when you answered that. I would've been.

Tigg, suddenly wondering about that 'no stupid questions' thing.

Not a stupid question. And I wouldn't have thought of that either.

 

In my experience, eggshell and matte paints adhere best to aquarium glass. I attempted a gloss black roll on once, and just couldn't get it to look good (streaky).

I've also been told plastidip works great on aquariums and is super easy to remove if you ever want to change. This reminded me that I want to try the ultrasonic blue on a tank, and I found this in the process:

 

Tigg It really isn't a stupid question, it's more a trained thought. When you by a paint that says the finish is flat, that's just what you think it will be in your mind when you paint it on, most people don't even think about painting transparent surfaces. I spray painted the back of my tank, one can of spray paint some masking tape, and old newspaper. I normally don't have to worry about the outside temperature being to cold to paint, summertime is different it maybe to hot to paint.

 

Tigg It really isn't a stupid question, it's more a trained thought. When you by a paint that says the finish is flat, that's just what you think it will be in your mind when you paint it on, most people don't even think about painting transparent surfaces. I spray painted the back of my tank, one can of spray paint some masking tape, and old newspaper. I normally don't have to worry about the outside temperature being to cold to paint, summertime is different it maybe to hot to paint.

Okay, yeah - that makes sense and thanks for the assurance.

(Sidenote: I have to hand it to FishLore members. You guys who've gone before us really do go out of the way to make it easy to learn and get into the hobby successfully. That's a very cool thing, man. Definitely hope I can pay that forward sometime.)

On the painting though, I did have a thought last night when thinking about taping for painting that I coud use some reassurance on:

Using painters or masking tape, when I run it down the side edges of my tank prior to painting, no worries about it pulling at the silicone / caulk stuff when I'm ready to peel the tape off?

 

No worries especially with painters tape, regular masking tape just remove it as soon as you can when the paint is dry. They didn't have that stuff years ago when I was doing some paint projects on cars.