can natural sunlight be done?

[Enzo]

HI, I have this really sunny place in my room. It is the perfect place for a small nano, like a 10 gallon. COuld I use the natural sunlight to light the tank? Should I supplement it? Please some advice. I live in CIncinnati, ohio.

 

[liquid]

How much direct sunlight does it get? How much indirect sunlight does it get? (hours) Also, what corals were you thinking about trying under it?

FWIW, Tropicorium (Romulus, MI) and Harbor Aquatics (NE Indiana) are two shops that I know that use greenhouses for lighting all of their livestock. So yes, natural sunlight can be done in our latitude. Each of these shops do supplement w/ halides depending on the coral tho.

fwiw

Shane

 

[ChrisIsBored]

Personally... I would want a bit of extra light to supplement rather than relying totally on sunlight. I have a 40G tank that i'm using mainly to harvest various caulerpa species and it's only lit by NSL but for a show tank it's not the greatest. Visibility isn't as bright compared to what i'm used to... and algae growing on the back glass often hinders some light from shining through...

You should give it a shot though...

 

[wwinters]

Anthony Calfo recomends natural light in Book of Coral Propagation I I like his aproach to reef keeping and am looking forward to adding more natural light to my 2nd tank this summer. My corals love the few hours of natural light they get right now.

 

[Bleeding Blue]

There are a couple of problems that I can think of with natural sunlight off the top of my head. First, there would probably be quite a bit of heat generated on such a small system. Second, the days are much shorter this far north than they are in the equatorial places that most tropical corals come from. Third, sunlight is full spectrum, meaning that the warmer red and yellow light (filtered out by several feet of water in nature and not introduce because of 6500K or cooler bulbs in captivity,) would penetrate the tank. Most algae likes the warmer red and yellow light, and would probably thrive in a shallow tank lit exclusively by natural means. :evil: It would probably be a constant, loosing, battle. In a temperature controlled room, natural sunlight can be a neat way to enjoy and spotlight some of your tanks, but I think that in such a small system, it should be limited to a neat accent.

Mike

 

[Will C1]

i also hae a 10 gal grow out tank lit exclusively by the sun. it dosent get hot and the algeas thrive. but idont think i would keep coral in it as i dont feel its bright enough. if you had it in a bay window and it could be lit from the side and top it might work out a lot better. also i do scrape the glass constantly to help remove the algea.