How much light is too much light?

[Anonymous]

Now I know a lot of you are saying "well I know someone who has XXXX watts..." well I have a ball of burning hydrogen, the sun, as the light over my prop tank. Right now it's against the house, under the porch so with the exception of the morning, the sun doesn't blast anthing directly, although my clams in it (yeah they're "proping" too ) absolutely seem to love it and expand their mantles a whole bunch

see attached picture for idea of setup
But for the rest of the day there is no direct sunlight, in fact the light is diffuse through that somewhat opaque fiberglass(clear enough to see a shadow of someone leaning against it but that's it) that gets reflected around my greenhouse/porch area but the tank itself is under the wooden roof, it's bright in there, however I wouldn't say it's MH bright. HOwever enough radiation gets into that tank that the water level does rise considerably... considering it''s a 10g tank connected to 120g of tank system (the rest is inside in a very cool room) it is quite a rise in temp.

Now I've been thinking (planning in-fact) of moving the prop tank further out so that it'll actually be under the fiber glass part so it'll get more sunlight. Then maybe replacing the fiberglass, with clearer stuff, to really get some sunlight, currently my hand doesn't cast a defined shadow under the fiberglass, as opposed to directly outside.


Some issues that worry me though
1) Heat of course, the sun is a very nice radiation heater for tanks, maybe too nice, I'm currently using a fan to cool the tank down and at it's current location that seems to be fine. But if I increase the side of the tank, which I want to do, that'll be that much more heater happening, I'm unsure if evaporative cooling will increase in the same fashion.

2) Too much damn light! How much is too much? I don't have a quantum flux meter, don't really plan on buying one anytime soon. But will this be too much for corals? I know my clams will absolutely love me for it, and my acans seem to love the light as well, but will everything else brown out as a result? Also I'm unsure how much UV light would be getting into the tank, I would hazard a guess the thicker fiberglass probably blocks quite a bit, but what about clearer stuff? I could put a glass top on the tank, but then evaporative cooling goes out the window.

3) Algae: I notice in my tank there is an abundance of that red poofy algae, yet in the main tank, the only places there really is algae is in dead spots behind the rock. Is the sunlight primarily fueling this algae? If I stick it in brighter light will it turn into a red velvet blanket? Removal is fairly easy, but I am a tad worried about it. Currently the tank is too small for any effective predators, and even an upgraded tank will probably be too small, I'd love to toss a foxface in, but I don't think I'll have that large of a tank to do it.

 

[frisbee]

If it ain't broke don't fix it? Overtesting can be a downfall.

 

[Anonymous]

It is natural sunlight and I do not think that it would be too much light , but maybe too much heat. You may need an air conditioner or chiller. Anemones and clams tend to fare better than corals at higher temps.

If you are worried about UV light, get glass/acrylic that shields UV light.

A glass top on the tank is out of the question unless you want to boil the tank.

If there are nutrients in the tank, you may have an issue with the algae and the corals browning.

 

[Anonymous]

1) there are lots of ways to make simple evaporative coolers. A five gallon bucket with a big drain to the sump (to keep any water from filling up), a spraybar spraying at the top of the bucket into the buck, with a downward facing fan works great.

2) you aren't going to get too much light with that setup. no chance.

3) clean your damn tank! The algae is from nutrients and lack of grazing.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes I realize the algae is from nutrients, in my main tank there isn't much in the way of algae. This is really confined to this prop tank, which makes me wonder if there aren't other forces to help boost the algae growth, I'm guessin the sunlight doesn't help.

But I know, sounds like a major sump drain and clean session since that's probably where the most crap can be nabbed.

 

[Brian5000]

Our lighting is designed to put out only certain wavelengths to maximize coral growth and keeps light that algeas use to a minimum, so yes, lighting is one way we control algea growth. Sunlight gives out all light that corals and algea alike will enjoy. I imagine water quality in a sun driven aquarium would be even more important.
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Bolivian Forum

 

[Anonymous]

Yes but the aquarium isn't sun driven, just a propagation tank, and with a filter sock I can probably reduce any issue of algae reaching the main tank... although the more I think of it I'm curious if making the tank sunlit might not be a bad idea, I'm trading electricity to light with electricity to keep it cool... PAR will be off the charts no doubt, but I doubt I'll get the fancy colors popping, although sunlight does make corals look quite nice.

 

[Brian5000]

I think the main reason people don't use the sun to light their tanks is just that it's unreliable (I only see is about 6 months here in Michigan). Down under the California Sun, you have a wonderful resource I don't. If you are only using it for a prop tank and you don't care if it gets a little green, then great. Using it for your entire system, the sun might create a couple unique issues to work around, but maybe you can make it work. Let us know how it works out and send lots of pics
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Honda P25

 

[Anonymous]

This tank is plumbed to your main display? Do you have fans on both?

I wish I could use natural sun light to grow stuff. I have my system in a basement?

If the algae is Asparagopsis taxiformis http://www.algaebase.org/search/species/detail/?species_id=636&sk=0&from=results, Turbo snails might eat it. But, then the nutrients are released to feed other nuisance alga, maybe in the main display? Could you section off a place for the alga to thrive and suck up nutrients?

 

[Anonymous]

As for the actual question: Can you have too much light? Dana Riddle has written a bit about this. You might want to look for it? I think his general theme is we can overdo it, at a certain point it is just over kill. I have found increased flow really helped my SPS, and more light did little, in my tanks.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes everything is plumbed together, both drain into the sump near the skimmer.. passes through a common refugium area (which is another algae pit), then there's one pump which goes to the main tank, and one to the prop tank (more of an experiment I've been running more so than a serious prop tank).

Well I would turn the "frag" tank into nothing but an algae sink... (although I would be worried about crap getting caught there)... however I have this feeling the algae won't just stay confined to that one tank if I tell it to stay there and grow When I set things up I'll probably make a macro algae pit, although I'm unsure if macro algae can really out compete micro algae for nutrients.

I had chaeto at one time, but it has long since died, turned extremely brittle on me, I believe due to some issues with precipitation of my 2 part mix, which I have fixed up.

As for flow, yes always the holy grail, however I'm not that concerned with lighting my sps, more so having a grow out tank so I can grow frags out and keep clams and the like.

Unsure about the species exactly, it's not hard like turf algae but really soft and poofy, seems to grow in little spherical balls. I really wish wwm had larger pictures and didn't comprise mostly of letters.

 

[Anonymous]

Did you check Algae Base? Sounds way like the red stuff I linked.

I think macroalgae way out compete micro/unicellular algae. I grow microalgae in cultures and it never blooms in my main display while macroalgae grows like crazy. Have you considered finding a desirable alga to grow somewhere so it competes with the nuisance macroalgae? I have a red leaf type that I grow in a refugium connected to my main display that grows really fast, sucks up the nutrients that nuisance algae feed on, and when I harvest, I can feed it to my tangs or take it to the LFS for credit.

I have found if I encourage some algae in one part of my system (sounds very similar to yours, frag tanks, displays and refugium all plumbed together) I can add algae eaters to where I don't want algae and those areas stay algae free. My reef has the strongest lighting and little algae (just the Halimeda I love) while my refugium has the weakest light and 30 species of algae! The reef has snails and herbivourious fish while the algae tank has none. I do have red that I linked to above in my alga tank. But, I think it looks gorgeous with the greens!