Corals or living organisms on the background glass of a tank

[FISHEYE]

I really enjoy the look of corals or living organisms on the background glass of a tank, yet I'm sure it takes a long time to achieve. Are there steps to take in order to accelerate the rate of the growth/spread of organisms (corals, etc) on the backwall of a tank? (aside from not cleaning it  )

Also, what are the best options (realistic) to do so?

I may have to wait patiently for thicker algae to form (which still looks great to me) before I can expect things to decide to settle on the back and my patience might also be needed for the tank to mature to facilitate the process. Any ideas are welcome! Please share success stories too!

Forgive me for all of the questions! Hopefully this is useful information for all, I just can't contain the excitement of my new tank (which I'm sure all of you can relate to!).

[sniggir]

well i know if you wanted to you can glue GSP onto you back, xenia will attach it's self, and you could even glue Zoa if you so wished... it would take a while for them to cover the entire background but would look cool for sure

[Cheebs]

I'm looking forward to the same thing.  It's been a few months already and the coralline has covered roughly 25% of my back wall of the tank.  I assume I'll need it to be pretty much fully covered before corals actually start attaching, or before I attack them myself.  I would think that the stuff that would spread to the glass easily enough would be Xenia and similar soft corals, unless you physically glue the corals on yourself.

[kennyman]

Along with the Coraline small fanworms will appear and help to bring the back wall alive. I presently have yellow polyps and more recently a flame scallop decided the back wall near a powerhead was "The Place To Be" It swam up there one night had has hungout there for a week now.

I got my polyps growing there simply be resting a frag against the glass and allowing them to colonize the Coraline covered pane.

Keep your calcium up and don't get a banded urchin. My banded urchin carves a path of destruction along the back walls. It spends 90% of its time scraping Coraline and tubeworms off the glass. but since I have so much growth back there I see it as a form of nutrient export  

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[FISHEYE]

Looks really cool Kenny!

I might give in to the gluing process, but I'll wait for the Coraline to form some more... (tank is 4 months old...). Won't the glue affect the actual tank, or is it easy to take off if the tank is emptied at some point?

GSP seems like the option for me, although a wall full of Zoas would be amazing. Some day, some day...

[Cheebs]

Don't take my word for it, but I'm certain there are epoxies or glues out there that you could jsut scrape off the tank when you are done with it.  If there's a nice layer of coraline between the the glass and the glue I don't think you'd have a problem at all.  I don't have any experience with glues of any kind though, so I'd research it a bit.

[Vallely4]

I'd think Zoa's would be a different story cover a back wall. Wouldn't they eventualy turn face upwards towards the light over the tank?
defeating the purpose of the zoo's on the back wall with them facing you...
In my experience they react and move any direction toward the light source, personally I dont think i'd like the look of them over the glass, then again never seen it done.
GSP would be neat  ...I have no exp. with it though

There's also this great epoxy out there I hafta mention now were talkin about coralline and glueing, probably blend in well on the back glass. I just got myself some
http://www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsUS/ctl3684/cp18270/si1383217/cl0/twolittlefishiesaquastikredcoraline2oz

Also my tanks been running 3 months... and have literally no coraline present. Just the other day I noticed two specs of purple coralline, but none over the back yet.
I have noticed blue and green coralline algae's growing on the rock though.
Think I need Calcium additives or what?

[Adam]

Check out some of the tanks at Marinescape, they have corals growing all over the walls in some of their tanks.

[FISHEYE]

Its actually their tanks (amongst a few others) that have me wanting actual corals on the back walls... I bet their tanks have been up for quite a while though, seems like the stuff spread on its own.

Thanks for sharing the glue Valley4, im sure itll come in handy eventually!

[AdamN]

I think GSP is one of the best options. My back wall is completely covered in coraline, and there is Xenia all over it, I had zoas on it also. The Xenia moved its way up the back wall and spread across the top only, so as mentioned above, zoas and xenia will eventually make thier way up to the top. GSP will cover the the whole thing if you let it.

[Julie]

I currently have the back wall clean except the area where the yellow polyps have started growing - I'm curious to see how it will look. 
There is always lots of life on a wall full of coralline.

[AdamN]

unfortunately its a good place for vermatids also, so if you have those in your tank, they have to be under control or they will love the back wall, or any coraline covered wall for that matter.

[kennyman]

unfortunately its a good place for vermatids also, so if you have those in your tank, they have to be under control or they will love the back wall, or any coraline covered wall for that matter.

I was happy to have them adding to the diversity in my tank but one is getting a little large    How big can they get?

[AdamN]

They don't get big, and thier size is never the issue. Its thier quantity. If there is too many of them and they start shooting that goo stringy stuff all over the place, it can get caught up in your corals and do them harm.