Truely 'daylights'.....

Here in Franklin, (a burb of Milwaukee), the suns pretty low on the Southern sky in the winter.

My family room faces south, and has windows on each side about 13ft high on the south side.
My DT also runs E-W, and faces south.

I usually keep the upper blinds angled, so the direct sun doesn't come in.
Recently I opened the blinds, so that when the sun in shining mid day, my DT gets direct sunlight for Hours!

Wow, do my fish look good in the direct sun!
MY CB Angel, has a light blue strip on his dorsal and ventral fins, that I never noticed until I saw him in the sunlight.
I'm hoping my corals are loving it if only for a few hours each day also.

Anyone else have direct sun in their DT's?

 

The prob with direct sunlight is your tank can quickly grow algae, and most of the light is getting filtered by the glass panes so it really doesn't "help" the tank to much.
Mine does get about a hr or so in the morning and the look is cool but anymore than that and I would prob block the window.

 

I too was worried about the increase in algae, but so far, not so much.

This won't last many weeks I don't think anyway.

 

My 125 display sits at the lowest level in a kind of atrium setup with lots of glass. This time of year it gets several hours of direct sunlight every day. So long as nutrients are in check, direct sun won't cause any algae issues. I know of some tanks that are actually lit full time via sunlight and don't have algae issues any more than those lit by artificial light.

 

Having sunlights directly above the tank (like solatubes) is completely different than a tank just getting light through a window on your house. If you have a thread to that tank I would like to take a look.

 

-Word!-

That's what I thought too!

I once saw a build thread of a huge tank, outdoor, with a starfire glass roof on a kind of patio- with only sunlight. I think it was in Thailand, not sure.

 

Yes a room built to light a tank like that will be different. A starfire roof compaired to a standard window pane is night and day difference.

 

The light my tank see's a little of is a double paner.

What would be the main differences between the starfie glass and reg. glass?
My lower windows are larger and have Argon glass and 3 panes, but my light is mostly through the 21y/o upper double pane window.

 

That doesn't make any sense. A window may filter light, but it can't add light.

Algae has to do with nutrients...

 

I never said it adds light.

A double pane window compaired to a sky light or solartube which collects light from a large area and has reflectors to maximize the light is a big difference. Along with all the spectrums of light that a double pane window will filter out.

Algae has to do with nutrients and light.

It can be done, but don't plan on putting a tank under a standard skylight or in front of a window and plan on much success without supplemental lighting.