Artificial background

[DougSupreme]

I am building a plywood tank and I'm thinking of putting an artificial background on the overflow wall and the adjacent wall. I have seen several online tutorials on how to do it and have decided I might want to go the route of expanding pond foam on an eggcrate background, covered in sand for texture.

Any other ideas? I just don't want a big black wall behind my rock. I'm open to ideas, and haven't actually purchased any materials for this project.

Some details on my tank:
48"x42"x26"
Plywood construction
Coast to coast external overflow box
Close to 5000gph of flow distributed between 8 jets
Rubble substrate on exterior of rockwork "atoll", sand inside

Open for suggestions/ideas.

 

[DougSupreme]

Any opinions? I'd love to hear from anyone who has done it. Also, if you think it's going to look like garbage, I want to hear that too

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[Michael Hoaster]

Fake walls are great! Here's there thread for mine:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2403722

I put plastic bottles inside mine to make caves for fish. I kept a harem of seven Royal Grammas, and they loved it.

 

[lapin]

Michael's is well done.
Since I feel my tank is not big enough I use the reflection of the back and side as added depth. You do have to keep it clean to see the effect. I have the outside covered with black cloth. Good reflection, easy to remove to clean

 

[Steve175]

I have my sides covered with custom made rock which I really like. When aquascaped in, it looks like a canyon like I often see when diving. For the back, I have sheets of acrylic that I can easily remove and clean (2 min with diluted muriatic acid). I am really happy with the combo. Looks like a canyon that extends indefinitely - esp. with a deeper tank and the lights pushed forward a bit. If you make rock walls, be careful not to use any products that leach phosphates (several related threads on RC). $0.02