natural sun bad for sps?

[toothman]

We seem to open the shades wide in the spring/summer, I recently lost a halkins echinata and another deep water acro. I really can not figure it out. I do remember last summer having problem with a couple acros I just can not remember why.

I do notice a good bit of natural light shinning on the tank in the morning and late afternoon. Possibly natural sunlight is the cause?

 

[Mikez1207]

Mmm that sounds like it could make sense...maybe stressing over to much light....kinda like if you dont acclimate corals right...make sense???

 

[hollister]

You dont want an inclosed fish tank exposed to direct sun light. Raisies the tempeture to excessive unwanted algea. Also many windows reduce wanted light waves. As far away from direct sun light the better.

 

[Alex T.]

Actually, natural light is good for anything photosynthetic:rollface:, however additional light may be the problem. I would also check your water temperature. It's natural this time of year for a sudden shift in temperature to stress your corals before your ac kicks on full time.

 

[Aqualund]

please remember that most corals in their natural environment mostly receive light towards the blue spectrum because of the depth of water they are at. In a fish tank there is less water to filter the light from the sun and it then leans towards the red/yellow spectrum. Some corals are perfectly fine with this, others are not.

 

[Alex T.]

Aqualund, I understand what you're saying, but there are a myriad of reefs totally exposed to air all over the world at low tide. For instance:

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/95839/Coral-exposed-at-low-tide-on-the-Great-Barrier-Reef

They are receiving the full spectrum force of the sun until high tide. I've had the opportunity to surf and snorkel over some of these reefs in my time, and I can assure you it isn't 20k down there. It looks much more like a 6500 watt, yellow Ushio bulb, which is still a full spectrum bulb. The only thing is that it's a very unpopular look in our hobby. Like you said...many corals can't handle it. The problem is that the OP lives far from the equator, as to most of us. The sun's intensity definitely changes in Philadelphia from November to the heat of the summer, But, the places our corals come from see the same intensity almost daily. It's that consistency and stability that makes keeping SPS corals hard.

Toothman, you may have to resign yourself to not opening that shade during the hotter months. My tank is in my small home office where nobody cracks a window or opens a shade but me...which is never. I noticed that when the shade was open just a bit, algae would form on the lower end of the rockwork where the sun had been hitting the tank. Even with the shade drawn, the sun's intensity would still peek in, so I even bought dark blue curtains to keep it from affecting the tank. Also, I don't start my photoperiod until noon, so having extra light creep in way before my 10 hour photoperiod was something I needed to address.

 

[MammothReefer]

90% of my tanks have been in or near windows. There are more then a few SPS tanks run w/natural sunlight as it's main source. Tons of out door systems.. Not reason why it would be bad. Grows algae... lower nutrients.

 

[MBIETZ]

Wasn't the TOTM a couple months ago a natural light tank?

 

[stevedola]

sometimes during season changes there is a ph swing from opening up the doors/windows that have been closed up for the winter. could be that a combonation of the co2 levels in the house changed and drove down the ph and the additional light was just enough to stress out those deepwater acros. It seems funny to me that it was only the deepwater species which would make me think that the sudden increase in light was the stress factor seeing that most deepwater acros like lower light. Yes its true that many tanks only use sunlight however those corals are accustom to the natural lighting and prolly dont have a lighting fixture over the tank. the sudden spike of light could fry those species.

may want to move any other deepwater acros to a side of the tank that is shaded from the natural light. My tank has natural light that hits it in the AM but its about 8 ft from the window so the intensity is not as concerning.

 

[Mikez1207]

sometimes during season changes there is a ph swing from opening up the doors/windows that have been closed up for the winter. could be that a combonation of the co2 levels in the house changed and drove down the ph and the additional light was just enough to stress out those deepwater acros. It seems funny to me that it was only the deepwater species which would make me think that the sudden increase in light was the stress factor seeing that most deepwater acros like lower light. Yes its true that many tanks only use sunlight however those corals are accustom to the natural lighting and prolly dont have a lighting fixture over the tank. the sudden spike of light could fry those species.

may want to move any other deepwater acros to a side of the tank that is shaded from the natural light. My tank has natural light that hits it in the AM but its about 8 ft from the window so the intensity is not as concerning.

what I was saying....just not as fancy lol

 

[RRaider]

sometimes during season changes there is a ph swing from opening up the doors/windows that have been closed up for the winter. could be that a combonation of the co2 levels in the house changed and drove down the ph and the additional light was just enough to stress out those deepwater acros. It seems funny to me that it was only the deepwater species which would make me think that the sudden increase in light was the stress factor seeing that most deepwater acros like lower light. Yes its true that many tanks only use sunlight however those corals are accustom to the natural lighting and prolly dont have a lighting fixture over the tank. the sudden spike of light could fry those species.

may want to move any other deepwater acros to a side of the tank that is shaded from the natural light. My tank has natural light that hits it in the AM but its about 8 ft from the window so the intensity is not as concerning.

Opening doors and windows would lower the co2 in the house causing a rise in the ph.

 

[Aqualund]

Opening doors and windows would lower the co2 in the house causing a rise in the ph.

Thats what he said.

And has for the natural sunlight on the corals, everything everyone has said here is correct in relationship to the corals being exposed to natural light all the time. But it is important to note that the majority of the corals we see in the hobby dont all come from the same spot, same reef, or same depth, and thus why it is important to recognize this fact when ruling out negative contributing factors such as natural sunlight.

 

[zaheda]

Check out my friend Amfyn tank out in the large tank section. Its a pure sunlit tank and was April 2012 tank of the month.

 

[stevedola]

okay. will do. my problem with natural lighting tanks is that the colors are too yellow/brown. Nothing pops like they do under artifical lighting.

 

[Whisperer]

I would love for my corals to receive sunlight. Mine get some late in the afternoon for less than an hour. No ill effects on SPS. The sunlight has to pass through a thick glass with light tint (huge glass panel), then pass through the glass on the aquarium walls.

 

[stevedola]

I guess it would really depend upon the amount/intensity of light and time exposed.

 

[Alex T.]

I guess if you're blasting them with artificial light, then any additional light might cause some problems with algae, bleaching temperature swings. People that could probably use a few more hours or a little more intensity are probably the ones that get away with it.

 

[allsps40]

I have seen some really nice setups using natural sunlight and growing amazing sps corals. ORA grows all its corals and frags in green houses using only sunlight.

 

[Aqualund]

I'm sorry, you can't just make the generalized statement of "well this guys has a sunlit tank, so all sunlit tanks are fine for all corals." Every tank is different and every coral at every position in the globe acts differently. If however, you are living at 15 degrees N latitude, and you go out 15 ft into the reef and pull out a coral, take it back home and put it in your sunlight lit aquarium, you'd be fine.

 

[MammothReefer]

Yes, ORA does, so does Steve Garrett http://www.garretts-acropolis.com/ and so do many other people a little window light isn't going to nuke your tank.