Sunlight?
- Thread starter tmcelveen
- Start date
fishy7
Active Member
I can share this: I had direct sunlight on my tank and did not know this for about a month. 
One morning I was sitting at the breakfast table and noticited the issue.
I had a large outbreak of green hair algae on 50% of my rocks and had no clue.
Well, 4 months later & 100 additional hermits the problem is starting to go away. The natural sunlight can be a big headache, well for me it was.
Keeping the sun out: The quick fix, :thinking: I went to HD and bought one of those paper shades and cut it to the size of the doors glass and no more sunlight.
The perm fix: We are having 0 light cellular shades made to cover the french door.
Good luck.
One morning I was sitting at the breakfast table and noticited the issue.I had a large outbreak of green hair algae on 50% of my rocks and had no clue.
Well, 4 months later & 100 additional hermits the problem is starting to go away. The natural sunlight can be a big headache, well for me it was.
Keeping the sun out: The quick fix, :thinking: I went to HD and bought one of those paper shades and cut it to the size of the doors glass and no more sunlight.
The perm fix: We are having 0 light cellular shades made to cover the french door.
Good luck.
jmick
Active Member
My tank is on the West side of my house by a large sliding glass door and I get 2 hours of sunlight on my tank every day. I do not have an issue with algae, as long as you keep your nutrients under control algae will not be an issue. If you have excessive nutrients, you will have algae problems (light is not the source of algae, it’s a catalyst).
tmcelveen
Member
Yeah, I've been having problems with algae blooms, and water quality in general. I've been doing very frequent water changes, and thought I'd try blocking the windows to see if that helped with the algae. Haven't had much of a heat issue, as the tank is in a well cooled area. I'm not sure how the little lady will like the trash bags duct taped over the windows, though!!!!
wesa
Member
To help with blocking some of the light you can use shade cloth. I agree with keeping the nutrients down, but to help block some of the heat, you can make or have made a screen or shade to fit the windows & as long as your other half is included as to how they should be made or look you will find it will make a difference. I've seen too kinds of shade cloth, bone color & black. Black to me is unacceptable in my house. Don't mind it outside but on or in the house the bone color works best. I had to make screens for the skylights in my family room. Works pretty good & looks nice.
unleashed
Active Member
i used to keep my reef right next to a window my anenome accually moved to be closer to natural sunlight .normal green algae on the glaas is not bad for your tank its accualy quite beneficial to your water quality.although not always pleasent to look at some of the healthiest tanks are covered with green algae(glass that is) this algae reduces nitrates in the water by feeding on it.this is part natures filter system.its also a sourse of foods for some fish.I clean only the veiwing areas of the tank leave the rest to grow naturally.
scooterble
New Member
i must be really slow because every one says that sun light is bad yet we keep buying bigger lights like mh to get closer to intense sun light if we pay all this money to get bigger lights more intense lights just like the sun then why is the sun bad for your tank
