Location of new reef tank

[Capslock]

I am looking into acquiring a 75gal. reef tank.

I at first wanted it in a windowsill but I dont think it will support the weight of the tank.

Anyways, The only other location is against a wall. I have 4 windows in the room, two are completely blind so no big deal, the others usually have the shutters closed and even if they were open, the windows lead to a bricked walkway so not much light would come through and it wouldnt be direct.

However, I do have two sky windows which light up the entire apartment during the day. Based on the suns location and the buildings around me, the sun never really shines directly in; it is again though, bright in the apartment all day. Its essentially like keeping your lights on all day long.

The sky windows are at a 45 degree angle and would seem to me shine on the top of the tank more than the sides if anything

So here are my questions.

Would this affect the algae growth significantly or would this be similar to having the lights on all day long (outside of the tank, not the tank lights).

How would the affect the length of time I should have the tank lights on?

side questions: I know the tanks need a good amount of light for the anemones but how much, do I have the lights on all day? and again, how would the sky lights affect this?

I have read that to reduce stress do not make abrupt changes to lighting conditions, does this mean I should have more than one bulb in the aquarium and slowly turn them all off one my one at night?


Thanks for any input.

 

[Anonymous]

That would be cool if you could light the tank during the day with natural sunlight. I have a friend who put his tank in front of his bay window, right in the middle of his front room. I thought he was nuts to give up the windows view, but his clam was really happy!

Algae will grow with artificial light or natural light, so I wouldn't base your decision on algae. If you have great light, you will get great growth of everything, not just nuisance stuff.

 

[ChrisRD]

If you're aggressive enough with nutrient control and have some grazing critters in there you can make use of natural sunlight and still manage algae growth, although I think it will be a bit harder than with artificial lighting (as you have less control of photoperiod and spectrum). One concern with this is temp control, although in this case it doesn't sound like the tank will get direct sunlight so that shouldn't be a big issue in a climate controlled room.

 

[cindre2000]

The biggest issue I had when I tank was receiving morning light was that the side getting the light would get a whole lot of algae really fast. The corals did like it though.