Using natural lighting (sunlight) in reef tanks?

[legendaryfrog]

Hey reefers. Im in the process of constructing my new home, and Im debating the addition of a large reef tank, somewhere around 1000 gallons.

All aspects of the tank can be managed and/or constructed by me as cheaply as possible, other than lighting.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a tank of this size would need somewhere around 4000+ watts? My goal would be to have as many types of coral as possible.

Using a wattage cost calculator, I see that my tank lighting would cost around $2500 annually, and thats not counting replacement bulb cost!

A friend of mine suggested using SOLA-TUBES, which are tubes that direct light from the outside, indoors. I have one at home and the amount of light they direct is comparable to a 150w MH and the like.

Heres their website
http://www.solatube.com/


Do you think this is a viable alternative? I would of course use some additional lighting, but im hoping the sunlight could do most of the work.


/thanks in advance

 

[Opcn]

Solatubes bring in more than enough light for humans, but for a reef tank I think they only count as suplimental lighting.

Where do you live? perhaps a green house is a good idea for you, or I remember a tank a while ago that was set up on the south wall of some building with reflectors to catch all of the light hitting the side of the house.

 

[hawaiianwargod]

legendaryfrog
[welcome]

 

[Sarcophyton874]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10144903#post10144903 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Opcn
Solatubes bring in more than enough light for humans, but for a reef tank I think they only count as suplimental lighting

I agree. Sunlight in the tropics has a certain intensity that can only be achieved with specialized lighting (power compacts, VHOS, metal halides). Your tank is going to be great, but first thing's first :smokin:.

 

[Opcn]

Our most powerful lights approximate sun that has penetrated several meters of water, unless you're keeping your corals right at the focal point under a 1000 Watt MH with an eliptical reflectoryou aren't going to have sun light strength, the truth is that no photosynthesizers need full strength tropical sun, with the exception of croceas and Maximas most of what we keep can be found at depth up to 40 feet.

 

[legendaryfrog]

Well everyone, I live in northern illinois. The tank will be on the second floor (dont worry. Floor has been re-imburced with commercial steel support bars and is made to support 500 PSF/continuous load.) with the back of the tank facing south.

I was thinking to have something similar to the drawing I included. As for the solar-tubes, A friend of mine sells them, so its okay to go overboard with the amount I use.

Since raw sunlight isnt exactly the right color temperature for corals (7000k), I would, using water-color paints, stain the sola-tube diffusor (not completely) blue. That, or use higher kelvin bulbs to make up the difference.

 

[legendaryfrog]

Sorry, I couldnt upload a picture

 

[Opcn]

Don't paint anything. The paint will only remove light, which will not help you corals at all. I recommend leaving enough room for a good number of MH lights, also you might want to get a few different Favias of the same species. Favias are mostly brooding corals, and with solatubes and no additional moonlight they will surely produce sperm and eggs and there is a good chance you could get lots of little favias growing on your rocks which can be sold for good money to off set the price of your light bill, assuming your filters arent beefy and don't eat them all, and there is no risk of spaning crashing out the tank like with broadcasters.

 

[legendaryfrog]

Do you think metal halides will be necessary? Could I do with just VHO flourescents? I know a guy who sells 72" 160watt 12000k VHO flourescents for only 30 dollars. I think they are from the "ocean HQI' brand. This would be a big money saver, considering 250w metal halides are somwhere around 80 dollars.

Opcn, I dont plan on breeding and selling anything.

 

[sfsuphysics]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10146310#post10146310 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sarcophyton874
I agree. Sunlight in the tropics has a certain intensity that can only be achieved with specialized lighting (power compacts, VHOS, metal halides). Your tank is going to be great, but first thing's first :smokin:.

Only half true, while yes sunlight at the tropics does have a different intensity than say here in San Francisco, that's because it's going through less atmosphere, however on a sunny day (those days that is is ), it will blow away just about any MH system out there MH won't come close.. just like opcn said.

That being said, I wouldn't use those solotubes, you'll have to poke a lot of holes in your roof for them, if you're going to poke that many holes you might as well go for a large skylight or right next to a south facing window.

Also depending upon what you want to keep in the tank you might not need as much lighting as you think you need. For instance if you want to keep really high light corals in particular areas simply have a couple 400watt bulbs with some lumenarcs, and use something like 54w t5s with parabolic reflectors in other areas. There's no rule of reefing that every single square inch of tank needs to be illuminated. So depending on the physical dimensions of the tank you might want to do some crafty planning, if it's a rather wide tank instead of simply ultra long you might get some interesting effects by having less light as you go towards the back of the tank. Maybe put lights only where rock formations are and let everything else get ambient light.

 

[Opcn]

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/totm/index.php Do what this guy has. Even if the solatubes were free they would have limitations. As I understand it, when you factor in the poor ability of flourescents to penetrate the water you end up lighting more area for less money with a good electric ballast MH. It might be a good idea to run flourescents in most of the tank and have an area with a MH spotlight to keep the light hungry corals in.

 

[glenc]

Hi,
check out Rod's tank on reefing the Australian way he uses solar tubes, there have been a few threads on reefing the australian way discussing his setup..


Rod's solar tube tank

Glen

 

[legendaryfrog]

Opcn, that link you showed me was my original inspiration to have a large reef tank. Its simply amazing how beautiful that setup is.

Heres a quick drawing I made in MS paint describing the general lighting scheme:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=560588682&size=o

STsuphysics, I have many "sources" where I can get these sola-tubes for very low prices, so it ends up being cheaper using them instead of a skylight.

I searched around on the internet again, and I found that 250w MH bulbs arent as expensive as I thought, so thats a good thing. I figure I'll use 10000k MH bulbs and VHO actinics.