SolaTubes for reef tanks

[JMBoehling]

Update:

Things continue to grow under the tubes. Sun is back to a good angle and really lighting up my reef again

Later,

Jim

 

[conorwynne]

Fabulous. More pics please.

What fish do you have? I cannot see any.

 

[JMBoehling]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12651379#post12651379 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by conorwynne
Fabulous. More pics please.

What fish do you have? I cannot see any.

Thanks

Fish:

Purple Tang
Yellow Tang
Lopezi Tang
Marine Beta
Mandarin Goby
Pair Perculas Clowns (Lay eggs every 20 days or so.. Female is 18 years old)
Algae Blenny
(03) Green Chromis

Thats about it...

Jim

 

[JMBoehling]

You can find more pics here

http://s71.photobucket.com/albums/i122/JMBoehling/?sc=1&multi=1&addtype=local&media=image

Thanks,

Jim

 

[hahnmeister]

Two things you might want to consider, as I know I am for my future 'sunroom' build...

You will get loads of light, even in more northern latitudes, because even thought the sun is a little weaker, the water depth is also alot less for our tanks compared to nature. A 14-16" diameter sola-tube can easily match the output of a 400 watt halide in that case at noon... even here in WI. Now, when in doubt, always go larger, for sure.... you can always restrict the light that comes in, but you cant add more later as easily.

As for color, keep in mind that a very good reason to 'overshoot' your skylighting needs is that then you have some play as far as adding in color filters to filter & 'tint' parts of the light. It can be as simple as placing a piece of blue tinted acrylic or film in the skylight to filter some of the light coming through to bring back the blues. A checkerboard pattern of blue film in the skylight or above the tank somewhere should be all you need, and any light lost from all that 'filtering' of the light would be made up for by the fact that you have so much more of it to go around.

Of course, for 'after hours', some backup lights are an idea. I plan on a 4'x4' (or two skylights that add up to 65"x65"... havent decided yet) light shaft over a 6'x6' tank, with about 24x 80watt T5s as backup/supplimental lighting... 1/3 running blues and 1/3 running actinics so I can suppliment the daylight in weaker months, and 1/3 running aquablues/6500Ks so I can have a full spectrum at night. Chances are, I wont even need these many anyways... I know of 480g tanks (I plan on 540g) which are running on only 20x80 watt T5s, with SPS top to bottom.

 

[Reefski's]

Jim:

have you ever measured your light with a PAR or Lux meter?

Hanmeister- if you have 24x80 watt tubes over your tank won't that block much of your sunlight from reaching the tank?

on my tank i don't need any supplement light, at least for most of the year. i don't know about winter yet. i plan to have some supplemental halides on a light rail that can be moved in or out of the closet by the tank. mostly in but available when needed or wanted.

i think a solar tube gives a point source type of light much like a halide. i like the way the sun bounces down the sahft in my tank lighting from more angles that halides or a tube.

Carl

 

[hahnmeister]

Those are some wicked high light levels. 200 is more like it for a tank that size (center, bottom)... of course, that 1500+ you get is for how long? If thats just the daily peak for a half hour or something, it isnt so bad. Still, be careful with the corals... they may not be able to take it at that intensity until acclimated, even if only for a little bit, until they build up their pigments.

 

[Reefski's]

it has these high levels for 2-3 hours over the day as the sun moves around it will be on brighter at various times over the day. i have not had any bleaching but rather some browning if anything which is interesting. no blue lighting to make the colors more intense. so it may just be my perception of the colors being browner than the reality of it.

i have some eggcrate over part of the tank where i will soon be putting some lower light LPS corals.

i am still in the cycling phase with hair algae and only a few corals, which are growing. not enough herbivores. just 3 urchins and a lawmower blenny. if i could catch a couple of the tangs in the other tank i would put them in.

nitrates <2ppm and phosphates are not measureable with Hanna
C200 colorimeter.

i believe sunlight can provide all you need for coral growth and health.

Carl

 

[hahnmeister]

2-3 hours per day... wow. I suppose, you are in Cali after all. In Hawaii, the levels peaks at about 2200 at noon at the surface, so you arent going to be that much lower than that... most likely in the 1800s at noon. You really might have too much light though... could explain the browning.

Maybe in your case, all the aluminum on the walls could have been just walls that were painted blue...lol. But really, that is still alot of light. At 15m of depth on Hawaii (most corals get collected in the 5-25m range, few above 10m for that matter... most from the 15m range). At 15 meters of depth, the noon peak is really only about 1100... and Hawaii has some of the clearest waters in the world (in case you were thinking that Hawaii might not get as much light as say... the north end of the Barrier reef or the other Pac Islands). So you could be overdoing it.... esp considering those are your light levels at the SAND!

 

[Reefski's]

i was just rereading the section in Eric Borneman's Aquarium Corals again about light and you are right about the attenuation at depth. i think he said 50% of surface values at 15 meters.

it is almost the peak of summer here.

why would they get browner from more light?

some redundency of photos but here is what Eric thought about the light levels.

http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic85132-9-1.aspx

Carl

 

[salty joe]

I plan on using 2 48"x48" skylights over an 85"x48" display. I am thinking of using a triple pane, tempered low iron glass design. (It gets real cold in NE Oh) A local glass company can fabricate the window part and I can adhere that to a flashed curb. The light shaft will be lined with specular aluminum, pretty much like you've done Carl. I was apprehensive about the appearance of light bouncing all over the place-the fact that you like it makes me feel better. Like you hahnmeister, I hope to have more light than I need. I thought maybe get a PAR reading in the winter and if that is intense enough, start shading as summer approaches.

Any input or suggestions would be much appreciated.

When the lanscaping is done, I can finally pull the trigger on this project. It has been a long time coming and I am close to starting.

Joe

 

[Reefski's]

good luck Joe. i think you will be very happy with the setup.

i love the way the light moves around the tank. and the glitter lines are really cool.

i am very happy i did it this way. and i will save a ton of $$$ over the years.

i will likely add some lights on a track that the be pushed into the adjacent closet when not needed which should be most of the year. only slid out for evening viewing.

i am getting great growth of the few corals i have in the tank.

Carl

 

[JMBoehling]

Sun is really hammering my reef right now, so I took a video. I guess a video is worth a thousand words

http://s71.photobucket.com/albums/i122/JMBoehling/?action=view&current=P6100146.flv

Later,

Jim

 

[sabbath]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12725388#post12725388 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by JMBoehling
Sun is really hammering my reef right now, so I took a video. I guess a video is worth a thousand words

http://s71.photobucket.com/albums/i122/JMBoehling/?action=view&current=P6100146.flv

Later,

Jim

Very nice! I really like that it still has a shimmer to it.

 

[mborn]

Outstanding!

 

[74oldsguy]

Thats innovative

 

[wizsmaster]

great thread. I'm looking into the solar tubes.

 

[hahnmeister]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12691214#post12691214 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by salty joe
I plan on using 2 48"x48" skylights over an 85"x48" display. I am thinking of using a triple pane, tempered low iron glass design. (It gets real cold in NE Oh) A local glass company can fabricate the window part and I can adhere that to a flashed curb. The light shaft will be lined with specular aluminum, pretty much like you've done Carl. I was apprehensive about the appearance of light bouncing all over the place-the fact that you like it makes me feel better. Like you hahnmeister, I hope to have more light than I need. I thought maybe get a PAR reading in the winter and if that is intense enough, start shading as summer approaches.

Any input or suggestions would be much appreciated.

When the lanscaping is done, I can finally pull the trigger on this project. It has been a long time coming and I am close to starting.

Joe

I really dont think you need to be so concerned with the Low Iron glass aspect and other things like that. Im just going with regular non-LoE Velux skylights. And, you should have more light than you need, yes. While the glass might tint the light slightly by taking a bit out of some spectrums, its hardly the same reasoning as using Low Iron for the tank itself. The glass in a skylight is thinner, and sure, even though it might block 3-6% of the light coming in, you still have a full spectrum and plenty of it to go around. I bet you could even keep the LoE and still be fine (halides use LoE).

Since you will have more than enough to go around in that tank, I would suggest using tinted lenses for blue and purple to make the tank not as 'yellow'. On lightbulbs, its a waste of their efficiency/output, but with sunlight... those things just dont apply. If you cover half your available 'sunspace' with blue and purple 'film' (even just colored acrylic) you can eliminate the need for supplimental T5s all together, and still have plenty of intensity to go around. Remember, even though you are so much further north than where the corals come from (a relative light loss of 30-50% for us in winter compared to the noon sun in the tropics), we are also keeping these corals at a fraction of the water depth that they come from, so its still easy to have 'too much' where you are. A $300 par meter is your best friend for this.

 

[8BALL_99]

Great thread. Funny I saw SoloTubes on DIY channel, They were installing one in a bathroom.. My first thought was hey I wonder if a couple of those would light my tank.. I have a question for you guys with Tubes. I'm fixing to replace my current tank with a 72"x36"x25" I'm trying to decide between a standard skylight or a couple of 21" Solatubes. Above my fish room has a pretty flat roof and the Attic between the ceiling and roof is only about 2'-3' or so. The roof gets sun all day. If I did a sky light, length wise it would run North-South not sure if it matters. I was thinking about 2 21" Tubes but I'm not sure if that would be enough. About how big of an area do these 21" tubes light up? I would bring them down to about 20" above the tank.

 

[hahnmeister]

A 14" sola tube would provide more light than a 400 watt halide when the sun is at a peak in your area. A 20-22"... whoah. I think you are in the 1000 watt range there.

Sola tubes vs. skylights? It comes down to cost here. Once you get into 3 or more sola tubes, you have often gone over the cost of what it would be to just put in one large skylight. The concern with skylights is that they dont control the light as well... the light can enter and end up only lighting half the tank or something because its one large shaft.

I came up with the solution for this a long time ago (earlier in the thread), and it has been tried and proven (you can see the '700g or how I blew my daughter's inheritance' thread in the large tank forum which uses this exact idea). You simply line the shaft with aluminum like the tube, and then you make a gridwork, like very large and tall eggcrate, but out of aluminum sheets... like 2-4 of them for a 4-5' long skylight. This way, the skylight is broken up into smaller 'shafts' like the solatubes and the light will be even across the tank. Now you dont end up with one large beam that lights up half the tank and leaves the other half in the dark. If you do this, Sola tubes and Skylights are the same thing, only you might stand to get more bang for the buck from the skylight. A 2'x4' skylight is about 7.5 times the light compared to a 14" sola tube. Sola tubes are usually $150-200 for each one (plus the fitting of each seperate unit), where a large skylight is one opening (less leak potential as well) and you can often get the whole thing for $180-250. Velux can sell you a non-LoE laminate glass skylight for the same price as their regular ones too, so no upcharge or concern there. To vent the tank in summer, you can get a venting skylight as well and really keep it cool. About 75% of the electricity from even a halide or T5 goes right to heat, so if you go 'sola', you are eliminating 75% of the heat from/around the tank at the same lighting levels. This in itself is worth it... oh, and a huge chunk out of bulb replacement costs.