My Shadowbox Background Project

I am still washing more sand. It's a jawfish tank so there will be about 7" of substrate.
I placed the bar to hold the sand at 6 inches thinking that it would make it easier to change out the background.
I am sure I could have just skipped it too.
By this weekend the sand in the display tank will be higher than that bar. I'll post another picture when all of the sand and the water are in. :)
 
thats amazingg!!!!
just a tip though.... the farther away something is, the more it gets tinted with the color of the sky or in this case, the water, you can see this in paintings, they first make the normal color of the background scene as if it were right in front of them and then tint it with the color of the sky the farther away it is, the heavier the tint
 
as seen in this picture.... what i explained above, plus the use of overlapping creates the illusion of depth
 

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Absolutely Rudy. That's why I spray painted the 'far away rocks' over lightly with my background color.
It's what I tried to explain when I said I intentionally softened their appearance by using the same blue tones rather than have them 'pop' more.
The soft blueish tones were intentional. :) (posts 60, 61 and 64)
 
just a quick but important update.
I finally got the tank filled and running and it turns out the current design of the shadowbox is a FAIL!

Without the tank lights on it's beautiful but once the tank lights are on all you can see is the blue background.
If I want to have visible background rocks it may have to be something that's right at the back glass.

Will have to think this over and come up with other solutions but wanted to post it in case somebody is working on something similar... ;)
 
dont get to involved bud, I loved your work but wondered what you would do in a year with all the corraline hiding your work.

I have enough trouble cleaning the front glass let alone the back. ive added a viewable side on my new build
 
lol. I was going to get a new Eheim electric scraper for the back to keep the coraline off (and still will ;) )
It's still pretty cloudy right now so maybe it will get better once the dust settles :)
 
I was actually thinking it may be too roughed up already and the glare from the main tank bouncing off the frosted surface may make it harder to look through.
It's not a total loss and I think it might be tough to find a perfect solution.
The blue background still looks nice even in bright glare, the rocks show more if just the actinics are on and of course even more when it's down to just LED moonlights.

I'll take pictures after I get the energy to clean the glass. lol

It's not so bad that I wouldn't do it again. I might do some things different and definitely put less energy in other things (because they turn out much less detailed anyway).
But I still love the blue glow much better than I would have liked a painted back or a glued on paper background. :)

It will be interesting to see how others meet the challenge. :)
 
pictures

led moonlights only:
sbled.jpg


then the box comes on (led moonlights and box lighting):
sbboxled.jpg


then the blue/purple bulbs come on, moonlights turn off:
sbboxactinic.jpg


then daylight bulbs come on:
sbboxall.jpg
 
Yes. I think that's absolutely the cause of the visual effect. One 80w bulb can not compete with 6 80w bulbs in the display/front. Kind of like not seeing much outside when you have your room lights on and it's darker outside.
I just don't see myself putting another 5 80w bulbs in the shadowbox.. ;)
 
i think another problem may be the blue tinted acrylic you used on the front of the box....likely clear would have worked better, then frost it...you have the back ground paint blue in the box right? that should carry through the look nicely...can you remove the frosted blue piece and see how it looks?
 
I probably could but I really like the blue glow... more than I like the detail of the rocks. lol
I think just not frosting the blue acrylic or moving the rocks closer to the acrylic would provide greater detail as well.

Now that the dust has settled completely I actually like it quite well.

Is it perfect? Nah. Definitely not.
0.
But it sure beats a painted back glass. I am actually adding more light to the tank rather than absorbing it like it would have happened with a painted or otherwise fused background.

I am pretty happy with it. For now I don't think I will make any changes to it.
I love the feeling it gives of depth just by it being so diffused and backlit even without much rock detail.

I am also getting used to how the look changes depending on the different lighting situations. Sort of keeps it interesting.

The main thing is that in none of the lighting scenarios does it look obvious/ugly/bad.
Some show more detail than others but it never looks fake or corny.
And that's really my most important thing right now. :)

I am definitely interested in how others approach this project and am looking forward to seeing pics and descriptions of those projects! :)
 
The problem is that your display light is hitting the back glass.

You really don't want any light to ever hit any glass in a tank. It just grows things there you don't want.

Fluorescent tubes are notorious for that problem. You need to change your fixture to stop that waste, and to stop it from front lighting your shadow box.

A good way is to put blinders on all the tubes. A better way would be to stagger the tubes in an inverted V = > /\ and use just two blinders. You want to mess around until you have a sharp cut-off shadow line on the back glass. Then your shadow box won't get washed out. As an added bonus you will have about 1/10th the growth to clean off the back and what does grow tends to not be hard growths, but easy to wipe off ones.
 
This is cool. I just came across this thread today, and I love it! I'm going to try my luck at it too. I'm going to try with clear frosted acrylic. I'm doing renovations to the house, but when Im done that, its shadow box time!
 
Very cool Dan. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with :)

Kcress I think you're right about the light bouncing off causing the problem.

Today I was done with all of my adjustments on the tank/plumbing,etc. and lowered the ATI fixture and I guess the wider dispersion of light is now closer to the bottom of the tank because the rocks in the background now show with more detail towards the top

I read an interesting article by Jim Fatherree and wish I could find it. It was about light reflection and absorbtion on the back glass.
If anybody has this article it would be neat to post it here too. I think it has some good info pertaining to the subject.
 
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