Natural Light

Is natural light good for an aquarium ?

 

not usually it will create algae blooms. I had to block one side of my tank from light from a window because the algae was getting supercharged on that side of the tank.

 

My tank near a window has more algae on the window side even though there is a blind! I've been considering painting that side of the tank or covering it with some mylar or something.

 

man, isnt it messed up that at first i thought this post was about beer?

what the others have said is generally true. for the most part it will just cause problems.

 

The problem is the glass filters out and distorts the rays spectrum and then the algae becomes a issue . There is not problem with the sun and algae as we use a few Sun Tubes over the tanks at the shop never had any issues and we have a glass covered sun fed hot house for corals and never a issue with algae there either. You have to keep the systems well skimmed and not a trace of NO3 and or PO4 or the algae will come .

The most serious issue I ever had with sun was heat it can send a big tank of 200 gals plus into over heating really fast . A smaller tank even sooner ..

 

That makes a lot of sense. I had always heard the sun was bad for the tanks, but I know places like ORA use natural sunlight for a lot of their coral and clam holding set-ups.

 

I simply speak from what I know and have learned from experience If I have never employed or pushed a methoed to the limits I will not speak of it LOL Even the Hemisphere and angle of the sun will effect the wavelength that is why 90% of all reefs are close to the equator.. Less distortion and light refraction from the atmosphere and air pollution and distorting it causes .

This why I simply pass on and laugh when I see all the discussion wasted on lamps Par and all the other letters people wnat to toss at them it means next to nothing in a fish tank..

 

funny how it works isn't in the ocean its fine our tanks not so much

 

Thats the very same thing I used to tell the Guy who dug out the DSB system again after a 30 yr hiatus and wrote a few books about how totally natural the DSB is and how it will maintain the reef aquarium for yrs with nothing else needed as it was the way nature took care of the natural reefs LOL I told him yes well the little glass box of water in your home is not the ocean. It will fill up just like any other septic tank . It's mass may become altered but it will always be mass in that system unless filtered out.

 

thats my favorite, same as bud light without the headach in the morning for me any way?