Tanks and natural light.

[petplanet]

Ok, moving house soon and am planning the new system. Has anyone got any advice/experience regarding using/effect of natural light?

The tank is going right next to windows (not my first choice but means it can be 3ft wide) and I am thinking of getting a sky light (window style) above the tank as the roof is north facing and then supplementing with T5 and halides.

I figure overheating should not be an issue as I will put extractor fans in to remove the hot air and the sump system while be in the basement.

[Brianemone]

for a large tank i would consider it for anything under 4 foot it wouldnt be worth it.

[petplanet]

4-5' long x 3' wide x 2' deep.

[Pies]

Heya PetPlanet

My tank is between 2 large windows. It gets drecnhed in sunlight (from the sides/front not the top) during sunlight hours.

I can't say it makes any noticeable difference for the good or bad of the tank. So I wouldn't worry about it.

It would be cool to supliment the tank with natural sunlight, but not sure quite how you would do it, but I would if I could.

Good luck with the new project.

Pie

[madcookie]

Pies, your talking about sunlight right? Direct or thru clouds?

Your location says "WEllington", hence the Q.

8)

[JoeBlog]

I had my tank in the conservatory for quite a while. Anthony Calfo raves about natural sunlight and thus why I originally put it out there. I didn't notice any real benefit compared to the MHs that I am running now. However, I really didn't have my setup optimized for sun exposure since I had this huge canopy housing these awful floros that I was using at the time as well. I would certainly do it again if I could have some means of controlling the major temperature swings.

I was talking to a local reefer in ChCh recently and he is thinking of using some really sweet sky lights for the majority of his lighting. Depending how things go for him, I may go this route as well. It would be GREAT to reduce my damn power bill!!

[Ira]

I noticed my tank, when the sun is shining on a portion of it makes the part with just the tank lights seem very dark. My lighting may not be super bright, but it's not exactly low light either.

[Brianemone]

yeah, ambient sunlight definatly makes a tank look dark.

i wonder if it would give the nice shine of Mh lighting.

[reef]

I have noticed that sunlight is awesome, Makes my halides look really dim. Coral open up really well.

Only problem is that if you cant keep a super low nutrient tank you will have major algae problems.

[nodle]

I was talking to a local reefer in ChCh recently and he is thinking of using some really sweet sky lights for the majority of his lighting. Depending how things go for him, I may go this route as well. It would be GREAT to reduce my damn power bill!!

Yes i have been looking into it very closely and am going to put three Solatubes above my tank to supply a large amount of the lighting to my new tank. It is still very much in progression as i am also having to make it fit around the new house renivations. The three sola lights will run most of the lights except for one of the halides with i will still have positioned above the SPS end of the tank so i hopr we have a nice summer and also help keep down the heat down as there seems to be very little heat transfer from the natural sunlight that comes through the tubes.

But come winter i think that the tubes will only be usable for the addition to help the halides out.

I must start a new post on the tank but at the moment it is on the to do listbut i hope to the first of the sola tubes in the next month so i will keep you up to date.

[Fay]

My cube is in the sun some of the day the anemones love it, I run a chiller which even comes on in the winter.