Natural Sunlight?

[HogWinslow]

I've been searching around and I haven't found a answer to my question.

 

Is natural sunlight ok to use on a nano tank?

 

We use all kinds of lights trying to simulate natural light but has anyone ever tried just using natural light? I live in Florida so the light here is plentifull. I was thinking of moving my tank by a west window that would give about 7 hours of daylight. If I kept it away from the window a couple of feet I don't think that over heating would be a problem. I saw a few post of people saying thier corals moved or leened towards the window but none of people using sunlight. Any thoughts here?

 

Hog

[Raise]

Mine is near a window and gets direct sunlight.

It will cause more algal growth but thats not a bad thing aslong as you have a sufficiant janitorial crew....

I wouldnt depend on sunlight solely though, a nice lighting setup + sunlight is the way to go IMHO

[apophis924]

Mine gtes about 2 hours of natural sun per day. As long as you make sure you do not build up too much heat in the tank you should be fine. I know even with 130 watts of PC lighting on my tank when the sun light comes it it still is much much brighter than the PC lights. as far as causing algea growth Sunlight is the best quality light there is. Algea is going to grow no matter what, get a good clean up crew and keep you water quality high and you should be good to go.

[genomik]

I had 2 freshwater tanks under some afternoon sun and the Brownian motion was BEAUTIFUL! Thats when you see rays of light shining through the water. Have never seen that with artificial light. I had no lid on one and occasionally had a small flourescent on the back. I had alot of plants growing on the top incluing occasionally an amazon plant that grew 5 feet out of the tank, maybe that soaked up extra nutrients.

 

Anyways, you might be able to try some seagrass as well. When i used to abalone dive off Santa Cruz, I would lie in shallow 3-6 foot tidepools and let the sun refract off the bull kelp. I saw the colors of the rainbow like a Kaleidescope. Bull Kelp has a sheen on the surface, others do as well.

[lizbeth]

My 5.5 gets filtered light. It sits by a sliding door that's covered by a slatted roof.

 

I'm getting ready to try a natural light only tank. I'm going to put the 3.2 gallon I'm building in my greenhouse window. The window is also under the slatted roof.

[Twobuck40]

We use all kinds of lights trying to simulate natural light but has anyone ever tried just using natural light?

 

NOT TRUE, we try to simulate light under 10- 30 feet of water, hence the blue, actinic and high Kelvin temp lights, natural sunlight will not make the colors of the corals stand out as much, but should make them grow like crazy.

 

check the pic at this linkhttp://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.p...threadid=179161

[skylsdale]

Have never seen that with artificial light.

 

Jeez...never seen halides before, have you?

 

I have been toying with the idea of a mangrove system for a few months now. It started with a 30 gal open top tank and shrink to a 6 gal...and has been put back on the backburner once again. Placement and no access to electrical outlets in front of the east facing picture window has complicated things a bit. However, I did set the 30 gal tank up with water and sand for a week or two just to see how intense the light would be...and I was blown away. The morning light was so intense you almost felt like squinting at the sandbed. The glitter lines were incredible, and I have no doubt whatsoever that corals could be grown under these conditions. Even though the tank would get natural sunlight for about the first 1/3 of the day, I think some incredible saturation would be taking place and even NO or PC supplementation would be good enough for viewing when the sun passes over the roofline during the 11:00 am hour.