natural sunlight?

[ffsteve]

Here is something I have been thinking of for a long time, lighting a reef tank with natural sunlight.
Has anyone ever done this in the northeast? They make natural sunlight domes that fit on your roof and project the light through highly polished tubing. They usually end with a diffuser that fits over the pipe and would look like giant recessed lighting. My thought was to use two of them without the diffusers. These are extremely bright. Now I know that sunlight going through the side of the tank will produce lots of algae. But what if you have it straight down, right over the tank?. Wouldn’t it be just like the ocean?.
What could be better than having real sunlight for my corals? Or am I just looking forward to huge algea tank? What are your thoughts on this?

 

[MrX]

There's a thread on RC where a guy and his wife built a reef tank using natural light like you're describing. I think someone even posted the link here on BRS.

I've read other posts with people talking about putting their tanks in front of windows/sliding doors to take advantage of natural sunlight. Don't recall them mentioning any specific problems.

You could always add shades/louvers to the light tube to cut down the light if needed. More likely you'd need to supplement with other lighting up here in the NE though.

 

[higorc]

I found this a while back. Pretty cool idea, but the corals don't keep the same colors as we are used to with natural Sun light. They revert back to a more brown blend color for the most part...

http://www.bostonreefers.org/forums/showthread.php?128434-Naturall-Sun-Lit-Reef-tank!!!

Higor

 

[mnavick]

As X mentioned............looks like you got some other hits on RC also
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2206286&highlight=natural+sunlight+dome