Fiber optic lighting?

Has anyone considered/attempted to light a reef with fiber optic cabling routing sunlight into the tank? I know there are some rather large cables out there that can project light.. I would imagine with some degree of bundling of cables you might be able to harness enough light.. Would be great on the electricity bill and you wouldnt have to deal with the heat of conventional lighting..

What are your thoughts? Would it be worth trying?

 

I dont know, but I wouldn't want a bunch of fiber optic cables around my tank. They are fragile and pretty dangerous. It would definetly be a hazard for you and your fish.

I say no. :-/

 

Thin, glass fiber I might agree. But I think that the plastic lightpipe would not be a problem. There are also companies that make aluminized light ducts for the very purpose of routing sunlight where you want it.

Having said that, I wonder what parts of the light spectrum might be lost in addition to the infrared (heat). Also, natural sunlight is about 6500K and tends to promote algae growth very nicely. The filtering effect of water removes a lot of the visible red and that is why we use 10000k and actinics.

Just my 2 pennies.

Mike

P.S. Here's a couple of previous threads on the subject.

Sunlight 1 Sunlight 2

 

I did a lot of reading on the Solar tubes today.. seems very cool.. I dont know enough about fiber optic to be able to determine if it would work.. I believe the solar tubes probably transmit a higher intensity of light.