SolaTubes for reef tanks

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Salty Joe

Boy that's more than I have been able to find. Where did you get the information on latitude and skylight installation angle? Using this I am a bit concerned about having the skylight go on both sides of the ridge. The proposed tank location is about 60-40 under the ridge though most is on the south side.


Do any of you know if these 4x4 skylights filter UVs? What kind of light output can be expected? And all the other pertinent questions?

Thanks
chask
 
I got some information about placing solar panels from this web site. It seems reasonable to assume the same would hold for skylights.

http://www.glrea.org/articles/howDoSolarPanelsWork.html

According to the site, true south is 16Ã"šÃ‚° west of magnetic south. For maximum sun exposure, they recommend subtracting 15Ã"šÃ‚° from your latitude in the summer and adding 15Ã"šÃ‚° to your latitude in the winter for the slope of the sun panel.
For a fixed position, which is what I will have, they recommend the winter setting for a more even performance over the course of a year.

One thing that concerns me about using acrylic or any other plastic on a skylight is the yellowing effect. At this point I am leaning toward clear tempered glass.

I was hoping to use one long VHO actinic lamp to bring out the colors. Maybe this is not doable.
 
Joe, I can't recall who it was that told me this, it was either someone at Cyro (i.e. Acrylite) or an acrylic aquarium fabricator, but they told me the yellowing thing isn't a worry anymore. They have improved the materials.
 
21836skylight_diffusor_resize.jpg


The pyramidal diffusor is normally mounted with the apex down for warehouse use. This diffuses the light in all four directions. We will mount them pointing up into the light well (upside down). This will focus the light toward the tank surface.
 
That's really interesting. Do you have any idea how much light the diffuser transmits compared to glass? Am I right to assume that the diffuser will eliminate harsh shadows? Please keep us up to speed as to how your skylights work.
 
Can't say how much light is lost. It doesn't appear that it is a big concern from all my discussions with the manufactuerer. Regardless of what you use, I would seriously consider some type of diffusor.

I tried out clear acrylic lenses on my tubular skylights at home. There is a whole lot of light that ends up exiting the tube at very acute angles.

A significant amount of this light exits the tank walls and never illuminates the intended organisms.

There are definately some neat effects because you have multiple point sources that constantly change with the movement of the sun.

The biggest problem I noted was a result of the multiple fine scratches in my front glass of the tank. They stuck out like a sore thumb because the light hit the front glass.

Don't ask about this tank. Sore subject. (300 gallons of free tank is still a major league pain in the *** when it
leaks.)

RC uses profanity filters for a reason, giving them a work out is enough in itself, creative use of symbols in place of filtered letters is a no no
-Dgen
 
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Look. If you want to make a point. E-mail me in private friend. I don't believe what I wrote qualifies as profanity. On the other hand your response is certainly way over the top.

Its certainly ironic that you jump in on something like this but at least in the past have failed miserably to controll some truely abusive and insulting posts that were devoid of profanity, yet much more offensive and damaging to this on-line community.

Keep up the good work.:mad2:
 
Herpervet said:


Its certainly ironic that you jump in on something like this but at least in the past have failed miserably to controll some truely abusive and insulting posts that were devoid of profanity, yet much more offensive and damaging to this on-line community.

Keep up the good work.:mad2:
Click to expand...

At the lower right hand corner of every post, is a link to report that post to a Moderator. There are thousands of posts here, every day, there just is not enough Staff to police every single one of them. I can only react to what I see.
Your little mad smilie is cute, but don't be mad at me, you knew that if you typed the word in question, it would have been filtered out by the profanity filters. You chose to bypass said filters with creative use of symbols in place of letters that would have been recognized by the filters.
If you have a problem with site policy, take it up with the administrators, Doug@ReefCentral.com or GregT@ReefCentral.com
 
Wow, this was one of the most peaceful threads I have followed on RC and then the moderator jumps in and clearly directs anger at Herper. Is there any way to request a new moderator and possibly remove his complaint from this otherwise fantastic and cutting edge thread? I have a suggestion for a light to use inside a tube. I recently purchased a 150 watt icecap spotlight HQI pendant and ballast and think it might be perfect for mounting inside a sola tube. This is very new technology here in the US but used for a while is Japan I think. A HQI bulb is crammed into a medium base reflector which looks just like a halogen flood bulb. I know its only 150 watts but the light really punches down in to the tank, very impressive. You could skip the pendant and somehow mount just the bulb in the center of the tube. All that is needed is a ceramic medium base socket to screw it into. This would also go along with the 'energy saving' theme of sun tube tanks. I got the 20,000 K spot bulb and it is WAY brighter than a normal 150 HQI system, not exactly sure why. You can check these out at Premium Aquatics and Marine Depot just started carrying them a few weeks back. I **** this site! '****' stands for love.
 
Shoestring Reefer said:
Why not just mount MH to the front or back or sides, and angle the reflector?
Click to expand...

I had considered this approach and I think it might work just fine. The only think I wonder about is if you will lose some light due to the angle. i.e. more light reflecting off the surface than if your point source is at a 90 degree angle to the water surface.

I might be showing my ignorance regarding basic physics of the visible light spectrum however.

It would certainly prevent the shadow worries though.
 
Check this out. I ran across this quite some time ago. This is a special light filter. Whats really interesting is they give specific spectral data that describes the light that is transmitted. By comparing to known data you could attempt to match the colors produced by currently used bulbs.

This probably won't solve the UV problem but it may help the overall appearance of the tank. (I think Anthony Calfo suggested this approach at one point to give credit where it is due)

I am going to contanct them to see if they could design a filter for our application. Some of the ones listed look promising but appear to really cut down on light transmission. Of course so does 60 feet of water......


http://www.rosco.com/us/filters/roscolux.asp#SPECIFICATIONS
 
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