Solar lighting for your tank

[FitoPharmer]

iv looked into farming corals in Canada, it would defiantly be a full time job just to adjust your shade cloths in the summer. where i live or a few other places in BC get lots of sun, more then enough to farm corals in greenhouses or to get a really good effect off a sola-tube 75% of the year. surprising a cloudy day is perfect, so even farming corals near the coast is feasible (cheaper to heat your greenhouse in winter). on a cloudy day, no shade cloths are needed, or just a very light mesh. on a sunny day sometime you have to block out half the light. just remember, if its not as dark as night there's light, and some corals grow 10 or more meters under water. when you grow them in a green house in a foot or less it changes how much natural light is needed for different kinds of corals. Anthony Calfo's first coral farm was set up in a greenhouse around Pittsburgh somewhere which gets more snow and less overall hours of sunlight per year then what we do here in kamloops. i wanted a sola-tube reef, but couldn't convince my mom to let me install one . they do shimmer if you don't use the light diffuser, however that could easily burn your corals on summer days.

[spreerider]

you can have light sensor controlled shade cloth, alot of orchid greenhouses use them.

[FitoPharmer]

not cheap tho.

[spreerider]

what part of a greenhouse is :P compared to heating or cooling a greenhouse they are cheaper, and not really that difficult to setup or to build one, just calibrating when the shade changes can be ticky

[Marlin65]

What is not cheap any links. Would love some more info.
Thanks

[spreerider]

I just read the entire post, especially about putting them under the surface, the company i work for makes underwater lights to light up fish farms and extend day length, the reason we use underwater lights and not surface mounted lights is that the surface of water reflects about 40% of the light unless its directly shining downward but that wouldent light a large area well so we put them under about 10ft and one light lights up a 25X25 area like daylight and those are only 400w with 1000w or 1500w we get about 50X50. so underwater you would get alot more light from a source but you would also get all the heat.

i would have posted on reef central but dont have an account.

[bauder1986]

very interesting indeed. And you can definitly see the difference in coloration that the corals change when under mh vs solar. I can see this option with a light sensor to activate supplementry lighting as something to be used on a larger more permanent tank setup. Ill be honest though, I have one of my tanks right by the window and early in the morning when the sun hits my frags in it, the open right up and bend towards the sunlight instead of the 150 watt MH sitting 6" above them.

So to say the least, natural sunlight is way better and probably far more intense then most manufactured light systems.