Tank Backgrounds?

[bohica12]

Ok here is my problem. Take in mind that I have only been a fish owner for 6 months. I bought some plastic like maybe acrylic paper for the back of my tank. When I tape it to the back instead of the pretty blue color of the paper it now(when up to the glass) looks black. YUK!! I go to the fish store and their tanks look so nice with the pretty blue, light and darker. They Have it with their tank. It is acrylic glass. I was wondering what could I do to make my tank more presentable with my background color. Could I buy some paint and maybe paint the glass on the outside? Or what? Please help, would like to have it look nice.
Thanks to anyone whom may reply!!!
James

 

[smithrc]

I've got the plastic roll on the back of one of ours.

nothing on 2 of them,

and one is painted with water based gloss - navy blue.

the painted one looks the best and dosnt get water between it like the plastic ones.

 

[Gazoo]

It looks like Penn-Plax (the only brand I've seen) makes 3 different blue plastic backings: Tropical Blue, Deep Sea Blue & Blue Mirror Back. Maybe they have a lighter color that will show better if you still want to go with plastic.

I just today attached their black plastic backing to my 16 gallon and it looks great. For the heck of it I first tried the dark blue to light blue fade (opposite side of black) and it looked way to dark in my opinion as well. It would probably look nice for a salt water tank though.