My recent accomplishment

[Chinaman]

I meant to re-adhere my tank background after Darkdep shared his
experience on the how-to.   Then I procrastinated. 

But I did it finally, on Wednesday night.

And I tell you, as Chris wrote " It's like day and night"

Although the result wasn't all that perfect as there are some small isolated air pockets,
still it looks a lot better. Now that I tried it, I might re-do it.


Sam

[BigDaddy]

Hey Chinaman

Yeah, those airpockets can be a bit of a pain... but the overall look is SO much better than just taping a background on.

[RossW]

Can I ask what is the secret to re-adhere?

I saw some product at BA the other day which looked really interesting but I did not buy.

Ross

[darkdep]

The secret is...Vaseline. 

[audioslave_36]

I might add here that I have tried the "sea view" from big Al's and I have tried the Vaseline, and in my opinion the Vaseline works better. But that is just my two cents.

Dave

[RoxyDog]

aaaaaand...you just put the vaseline on the tank, slap the background on and smooth it out?

[darkdep]

Pretty much.  Smear it all over the back in a thin coating.  Put on the background, making sure to fit it under the trim, and use a stiff flat object to squeegee it completely and try to get out all the air.  I used an old credit card, someone suggested a hardcover book once that seems like a good idea. 

Go over it over and over, and then over again.  Some of the air bubbles might not show up for a while so spend the extra time now.  I have two of the 6 I did with air bubbles and they were the ones I spent less time squeegeeing.

[audioslave_36]

I used a 3m window film application squeegee and it worked great. 

and I should add also you pay 7$ for sea view and it is barely enough to do a 48" x 24" surface, so the vaseline is cheapper too.

[RoxyDog]

wonder how this would work on a rimless tank?  if you have to take the canopy off, which I often do during water changes, you take the "trim" off too.  does the background move around easily?

[audioslave_36]

no it doesn't move very easily but if the trim fits tight to the glass you might have an issue there.

[RossW]

The secret is...Vaseline. 

Sweet!  Thanx for that.

Sorry for the thread jacking of sorts.