Some manufacturers now offer a so-called background lighting for aquascapes. This is a fully illuminated back panel of the aquarium. In this article, we explain what exactly it is all about and how best to use it.

What is a background lighting

A background lighting for an aquarium is an LED lamp that glows across a whole surface, cut to the size of the rear pane. In addition to the surface illumination, the lamp body is characterized by its space-saving and flat design. This way the aquarium can stand against a wall as usual. The lighting of the background serves as a visual effect and creates more spatial depth. This is achieved, for example, by the background appearing somewhat brighter through the illumination and creating a kind of additional visual space behind the aquarium glass. The viewer's eye then assumes that it goes on even farther behind the rear pane. Such background lightings are a good support especially for aquascapes with a lot of depth, such as the diorama style. This applies both to the live experience and to creating a final shot.
Indirect lighting for the background is also very much in vogue in living spaces in general, for example behind TVs or other furniture. An aquarium with a background light therefore also looks much more appealing as interior decor.

A background lighting is less suitable as an alternative to conventional aquarium lighting, for example to supply the aquatic plants with enough light. Consequently, such background lightings have a rather low lumen value. This also makes sense so that the additional light does not trigger algae as well. Moreover, in this case the aquarium plants would orient their growth direction not upward but toward the back, which would look rather strange.

There are often various choices for the color tone. Many manufacturers offer different films for this, which can be attached between the glass pane and the background light. Besides a milky-white look, blue gradient films are also very popular, which you may know from various aquarium designs by Takashi Amano.

The aquarist can also adjust the light intensity on the lamp, because many background LEDs are dimmable or offer retrofittable dimming. This way the effect and the light intensity can be adapted to the respective circumstances and wishes. With the right background light, aquascapes really shine and are shown off to better advantage. Bright, strongly illuminated back panels make the contours of the objects in the background appear softer. The viewer gets the impression that the space in the background goes on infinitely. This emphasizes the sense of depth enormously and can be accentuated even more clearly by light sand paths that wind toward the back.