Natural Light Tank

[Mattewell]

Well, now that the sun is pouring directly into my 75gallon tank, I have decided to take advantage of this. On sunny days I remove the light that I have on it and let the sun take over. Here are a few shots of some GSP that I have in there. I have some other misc. stuff in there too. Jim- the GSP you gave me doesn't like my 36 gallon so its in my 75 now. Hope you don't mind...

I guess I'll have to see if this improves the color/health/growth rate of the stuff in there.

 

[michaeltwana]

how much natural light is it getting? is it coming in from what angle? just curious...

 

[Mattewell]

Well, going back to our conversation about the greenhouse, The sun is at an ever increasing angle to us each day. So yes the sun is at an angle. From around 2-3 the sun is at its most direct to the tank. I get sun in the tank from around 10am till about 4pm (considerable angle in the morning and afternoon). Its not going to be near as direct as light from a metal halide, but it certainly should be much better light than 130watts of power compact light (thats what I had over that side of the tank). I'm mainly doing this as an experiment to see if its even feasibly possible to get enough light from the window to grow sps. Right now i just have some GSP in the tank. I think this might be more successful than a greenhouse in this area because I can control the ambient temp. with more accuracy. The only downside is I don't get as much sun as I would with a greenhouse. I'm just playing with the "Free light" that I'm getting!

 

[michaeltwana]

huh

 

[tarax]

The only thing that I would worry about is most of today's windows are a double pane window with a Low E type of manufacture that may remove some of the needed wavelengths that they will need in order to survive. I think it will be a good experiment however to see if your windows will let the needed wavelengths through and support the corals.

 

[Mr James]

Experimentation is what it's all about. Can you take a picture of the tank near the window please?? I've never seen your tank and was curious how you have it set up near the window.

 

[Mattewell]

I will try to post a pic of the tank, waiting for a sunny day so you can see how much light is on the tank.