Natural sunlight?

[jezzeaepi]

Recently I have been thinking alot about using natural sunlight to to grow some corals. Anthony Calfo's coral propagation book has me all excited about it lol. Obviously we deal with a lot of rain and cloudiness here in the PNW and I was wondering if any folk had tried it. If so, were you succesfull? Did you have to supplement with MH's? Did you get good growth and coloration?

Peace,
Jesse

 

[class clown]

I'm pretty sure Jesse B gave this a try on his monster of a tank which sits in his sunroom. may want to PM him to chime in here.

 

[class clown]

K - found the post.:shock: :shock: :shock:

wow that's a beauty

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7669

 

[jezzeaepi]

Thanks for the link dig!

 

[jesseb]

One of these days I need to update that thread with the changes and all I've made to the tank...

I originally was hoping to go without lights - started tank in Feb and finally put lights on following november -I found that (at least at our house) there is only enough light for coloring SPS around end of June through September - we do have a lot of tall cedars which limits how much sunlight we get most days -even when it is clear out.... I'd suspect with fewer trees - I'd be able to squeak 5 or so months of limited light (probably end of april - october-ish.

My sunroom is also tinted, which cuts back on the sunlight on the tank - ambient light is a lot more than any other room in the house (3 or 4 times brighter) but isn't enough to either maintain or drive full coloration. Softies and even some LPS probably fine (my anthelia polyps care less about the light for instance). I run the 2 400W lights around 10 - 11 hour a day - with the open top on the tank in the sunroom - I don't feel like I have to saturate the tank with more electric lights than that and am very happy with the coloration.

Hope that helps!

 

[jesseb]

btw - another advantage of lights - they help heat the room in the winter - with all that glass - the room doesn't hold much heat - I also leave two or four windows at least a little bit open to have some airflow in the room - and have an exhaust fan to pull out humidity - the room is comfortable on all but the coldest days - with the door open - it's comfy on the hottest (90+ days in the summer = all two of them

This link will get you to a page with a couple of photos I took of the tank - 1/2 sun and 1/2 MH lights....

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7669&page=4

 

[jezzeaepi]

Thanks for the resposne JesseB. The tank is awesome! Sorry to hear that sunlight didn't work out for you for more of the year. Out of curiousity did you ever compare a PAR readings from a cloudy day to that of a sunny day? What about a cloudy day vs the MH's?

I see you did post these results:
"Out of doors: 1955 PAR
Inside sunroom: 750 PAR"

Do you think the "in room" measurement would be closer to outside if you had less beams blocking light and less tint? Anything else you think that contributed greatly to the difference between the two?


Peace,
Jesse

 

[jesseb]

I didn't compare PAR readings on a cludy day - I'll try and do that the next time we have one that shouldn't be too far off I'm sure tint, as well as probably dirt/dust/waterspots/film on the exterior/interior of the sunroom were/are the key reasons for the difference.

I also forgot to mention - the sunroom is not southern facing - in fact is probably northeast facing. So it's not situated to optimize sunlight - the opposite actually - combine that with the trees - and the beams (I'm sooo glad I got those wood beams regardless) as the sun tracks - it gets maybe 6 - 7 hours of reasonable sunlight on the longest days of the year, none or near none on sunny, short days (sun behind trees).

With southerly facing, more open area, you'd certainly get more sunlight -when we have it and that might be quite impactful. That said, I can't fathom the tank would get enough light over a period like we had between november and most of january for instance (power outages notwithstanding) to maintain color on SPS.

 

[jnarowe]

jesseb: I see in some of the original pics some corner pieces you put on the tank and I assume they are to protect yourself from getting gored. Where did you get those?

 

[jesseb]

jesseb: I see in some of the original pics some corner pieces you put on the tank and I assume they are to protect yourself from getting gored. Where did you get those?

I assume you mean the foam corners on the outside ? Not just to protect me from goring myself - to protect the tank corners and edges as well.

It's foam they sell for protecting kids from furniture edges and corners. They might have it at Home Depot or Lowes (they both have home safety stuff for kids) - I think I got the stuff on the tank from Toys-r-Us in Bellevue.