Color of background for discus

[andye]

Hi Tom,

So my 200 gallon rimless tank finally arrived. Will hook up the lights next week and get the plants rolling. This will be a planted discus tank with just amazon swordds in the background and java fern atttached to driftwood. I spoke with a repuatable discus breeder and he asked me what color my background was. It is black. He said that black will darken colors of blue strains such as blue diamonds.
He suggested scraping off the paint and going with sky blue. I could do this or stick with red strains. Tom, what are your thoughts about this. Stripping the paint a 6 ft long glass tank my end up being a messy job and not look too good when all is said and done.

Thanks,

Andy

 

[Tom Barr]

I think it's aesthetics, but fish often try and match the colors of the water's they live in for rather obvious reasons.

You could get green snake skins and have a wall of plants


Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[andye]

Tom,

Thanks so much for the quick response. Very funny. I am hoping for lush background plant growth who knows what will happen.

Andy

 

[VaughnH]

If you have sword plants your fish will have a hard time seeing the back wall of the tank. They may even have a hard time finding an opening to swim through. Black is really not a color anyway, but an absence of color. I would stick with the black.

 

[Tom Barr]

Another part of aesthetics, background wall CONTRAST.

Now matching color might yield the best color from the fish, but they will not stand out against such a blue background either.............

Something to consider.
With Rift cichlids, most folks prefer black to highlight the blues and reds and green colors, this adds a nice contrast.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[David Hui]

The reason not to have a dark background is because of Pigeon Blood type discus will display black speckles on its nose or its body. PB discus does not have black bars instead they have black dots...