Why Not Natural Sun light ???

[b-baby80]

O.K. so the corals etc.. grow very happily in the ocean.With natural sun light right?All we're doing is trying to recreat that correct?So why do i always see were people say to keep your tanks away from windows?Also Has anyone thought about using real sunlight for your tank.Like maybe "Solatube" lighting or something.I think that would be awesome.We're a pretty green family and this was just an idea i had.No timers or anything.The light would be all natural and come on when the sun rises.
What does everyone think?

 

[earlybird]

Often causes green water. It's too difficult to get consistent intensity. Not to mention most of the corals we keep reside in the tropics where the sun's rays/radiation doesn't fluctuate as much as far as degree or angle that it enters the water. Not sure if that makes sense but it does to me.

 

[bessycerka]

Good point earlybird. The window glass, and the tank glass filters out much of the good spectrum too. In Florida there was a LFS that had a row of tanks as soon as you walked in the door. The sun shining in the door all day made all of the actinaria and coral flourish. The owner said that it was advantageous to keep his reef selection there, he had some algae growth on the glass, but the extra effort of cleaning was worth it. I had a freshwater tank in NH and the sun would shine through a window across the room. The light would hit one side of the tank from about 11 AM till 1 or 2 PM, it was just enough to make my plant life flourish, with very little algae on the glass. Experiment! I was thinking about setting up a plywood, insulated holding tank with an acrylic lid and a heater, in the backyard. Here in Louisiana the winter gets cold, but nothing compared to up north. The acrylic will let some UV as well as minimizing filtering of the weaker winter sun. Glass filters out UV and some other wavelengths as well.

 

[b-baby80]

The solatube lighting is really cool.It basically reflects and magnify's the sunlight.It comes in a tube through the ceiling.Like a skylight but 10x more effective.I've just pondered on it for a bit.

 

[ameno]

I actually though about doing that a few years ago with the solar tubes, and talk to a guy on this board who had done it with I think was a 300 gal. tank and he really liked it, said it worked great. He posted some pics of his tank, it really looked good.

 

[b-baby80]

Originally Posted by ameno
I actually though about doing that a few years ago with the solar tubes, and talk to a guy on this board who had done it with I think was a 300 gal. tank and he really liked it, said it worked great. He posted some pics of his tank, it really looked good.
I did a search after posting and saw a guy in India who was doing it.I bet it would be expensive to start out but imagine how cheap it would be in the long run.No bulb replacements,no high light bills

 

[ameno]

when I was looking I think the solar tubes were a couple hundred each, so depending on the tank maybe up to four, lot cheaper then a set of lights, and no electricity. only problem I see is depending on were your at how much sun you would get and cloudy days you would not get a lot of light, but you could always add some alternative lighting for night viewing or cloudy times, still think it may work out good, if I ever get a really big tank like I want 300gal or bigger I may have to give it a try.

 

[b-baby80]

Originally Posted by ameno
when I was looking I think the solar tubes were a couple hundred each, so depending on the tank maybe up to four, lot cheaper then a set of lights, and no electricity. only problem I see is depending on were your at how much sun you would get and cloudy days you would not get a lot of light, but you could always add some alternative lighting for night viewing or cloudy times, still think it may work out good, if I ever get a really big tank like I want 300gal or bigger I may have to give it a try.
Yeah thats what i was thinking.In all honesty their are rainy cloudy days in the ocean too.They don't get extra their and they thrive.So you may not even need extra supplement.I saw on one site.Were a guy had his coral propagation in a green house.So it was 100% natural and they all looked awesome!

 

[earlybird]

Originally Posted by B-Baby80
Yeah thats what i was thinking.In all honesty their are rainy cloudy days in the ocean too.
Yes but the weather is much more consistent in the tropics. It is sunny 99.9% of the time.

 

[zman1]

I would like to use solatubes and supplement with MH or T5 HO when the weather doesn't cooperate. I am sure you could use a photocell setup on delay timers to drive the lights on cloudy days. Anything to help reduce the theft from the utility company would be great.

 

[m0nk]

The Wakiki Aquarium in Hawaii uses only natural sunlight for all of their coral tanks, and they do quite a bit of aquaculture there to sell to other aquariums around the world. As noted, though, they're one of the locations that gets consistently adequate sunlight to be able to do this. I know I wouldn't even consider this, or some of the other options mentioned, where I am in PA, too much "gloom"....haha.

 

[zman1]

What we need here is to get Bang Guy (NY) to put a solatube in one spot of his 900 gal lagoon and put comparable corals under it and on opposite sides under typical tank lighting. It may be tough to get it to the basement, but would be an interesting experiment...

 

[ameno]

one other thing that I thought about is in the ocean the corals are in a greater depth which would cause a different spectrum on the lighting there, thats why we use different spectumes of light to bring out colar for viewing. although in the ocean when you look at the corals they are not that colorful at times because the light filters it out. I actually use a special type diving mask that helps to see the colar better. But who knows it might be ok, I think some needs to test this and see if it would work or not

 

[zeroc]

there's a guy here in Ohio that grow corals in a green house and just uses the sun light, he doesn't suppliment, even in the winter and his stuff grows like crazy.

 

[zman1]

I read that/saw it, he has a web site showing planning, design, and running on his personal Web site. I don't recall his name or the Web site. He has a huge custom skimmer as well. If I remember he did have a huge macro algae bloom in his monster sump on early startup. I believe he was going to sell corals commercially in the end.

 

[zeroc]

that's someone else you're talking about then.