I paint the bottoms of mine. A dark color will make it easy to see the fry. Sand just makes it harder to siphon and harder to see fry (unless you use black sand). Once the fry have grown out a bit and aren't sitting on the bottom like a bunch of slugs, then sand is no problem.
I dont have pics but I bought a used tank with a painted bottom .It was spray painted black on the outside much like when people paint the back glass of their tanks.
Definitely paint the bottom black, it will look a lot better, and will not effect the convenience of cleaning and extracting the fry that the bare bottom tank offers and the pleasing non reflective look of the glass reflecting. Also spray paint dries very fast and if you have it aired out enough, within about 5 hours you can set everything back up again.
It's easist to do before you set the tank up :lol: but spraying the bottom of your fry tank with the sand colored spatter paint works very well. I make sure i don't get any overspray on the load bearing surface of the plastic rim.
This is what it looks like from the inside
Ypu can get creative and use black paint to outline rocks--then spray the spatter, like I attempted on the 20 (I'm not much of an artist :roll: ) or just go with the full surface spray.
IMHO, fry tanks without substrate are much easier to maintain & the fry really appreciate the pristine conditions :thumb:
I hate bare bottom tanks. If I couldnt put sand in, I'd have to paint the bottom of the tank black or blue.
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