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Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)

Hi,

John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.

I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.

With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.

I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.

If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.

I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.

I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.

Thank you
Darragh Sherwin

Using _natural_ light for Marine setups?

  • conor (conor)
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10 Feb 2006 02:21 #1 by conor (conor)
Using _natural_ light for Marine setups? was created by conor (conor)
reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/totm/index.php

This guy uses natural light (three large windows), aswell as the usual halogen lighting for his massive marine tank.

So this leads me to believe that placing a marine in the bay window of our house may actually be a good idea.

Obviously green water wont be an issue?

Anyone have any experience with this?
regards
Conor,. :roll:

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10 Feb 2006 13:07 #2 by Dave (Dave Fallon)
Replied by Dave (Dave Fallon) on topic Re: Using _natural_ light for Marine setups?
Assuming he lives in a part of the world, presumably american, where lack of sunshine is not an issue, it could be done, but i feel extra lighting would always be needed, to get the right intensity and spectrum.

However, on more convential sized tanks, ie 50-150gal(IMP) I cannot see it working, and would be better lit with Metal Halides or Pendants.

Interesting set up though.
Qui Vivra Verra.

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  • gm333 (gm333)
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24 Apr 2006 22:13 #3 by gm333 (gm333)
Replied by gm333 (gm333) on topic Re: Using _natural_ light for Marine setups?
This setup only gets three hours a day, the only reason he has done this is for the looks of natural sunlight only. With this short of time it has very little benefits for the tank besides beauty.

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  • conor (conor)
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24 Nov 2006 04:23 #4 by conor (conor)
Replied by conor (conor) on topic Re: Using _natural_ light for Marine setups?
Been doing some research into natural lighting, came across these guys:

solatube.com/res_edu.php

So I called up for a quote for my aquarium (freshwater gone, fish & plants in buckets, reef needs a bigger home - more on that in another post)

I need to speak with a builder, but they recon around €600 for decent light.

I did some research on reefkeeping.com, and this is what I came up with :
reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=...p;highlight=solatube

OK, so I don't live in the sun, and this time of year we do not exactly get long light hours, however, the energy savings would be huge, and it would pay for itself with two years -- unscientific calculation!

Opinions? :o

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24 Nov 2006 05:24 #5 by Sean (Fr. Jack)
Replied by Sean (Fr. Jack) on topic Re: Using _natural_ light for Marine setups?
A lot of public aquarium have a semi transparent roof with metal halogen light sandwiched between this roof space and the water table, when the artificial light goes off, you hardly notice it so presumely 80% of the light is the natural variety. In a heavily planted freshwater tank or in marine tank that has carpets of green algae, this could be dangerous as the pH could climb to 8.8ph at 4PM.
My favourite way of lighting a tank is have no lid and have a very deep dank, but not filled to the brim, (20cm above the water level) then by pass the fish shops (sorry) and go to a good electrical wholesale/retail and buy a metal halogen light that inserted perfectly into the false ceiling. As the light is so far above the tank the light enters at 90 degree to the water as apposed to say a florescent that is at varies angles 20 degrees to 90 degrees. If you do it this way you eill create a "ripple" on the bottom that looks like in a real reef.
That would be a ecumenical matter!!!

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  • conor (conor)
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24 Nov 2006 05:48 #6 by conor (conor)
Replied by conor (conor) on topic Re: Using _natural_ light for Marine setups?
Hi Sean,

If you have algal problems using natural light, then you have nutrient issues. Algae grows when the nutrient levels are too high - specifically nitrate and phosphates. other discoled organics are not an issue as they are either extracted by the coral or by the skimmer/carbon etc.

After all, metal halide lights are as close to sunlight as you can get, mine is a small one at 15,000K, and the salatube I'm looking at fitting -- when I get a spare 600 quid - is rated for 14,000K.

I was thinking of using additional blue lights for night time viewing.
This may not happen for a few months anyway as

1. Its winter &
2. I'm poor ;-(

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24 Nov 2006 06:13 #7 by Sean (Fr. Jack)
Replied by Sean (Fr. Jack) on topic Re: Using _natural_ light for Marine setups?
Yes this does not surprise me, I cant remember the last water change I did, 2yrs or so?, I don't know what the nitrate level is as I don't have a test kit, the cropping or harvesting of the algae does indirectly take N03, out as well as the bacterial activity deep within the live rocks provided the is a carbon source.
Fisheries scientist have a test kit called the biotic test, lets say there has been a dead cow up river for the last 2 months and has just been removed yesterday. If you test the stream upstream and down stream, the water test will be perfect (or meaningless from my point of view), the if you a biotic test and look at the types of plants growing upstream and down stream, and know which species thrive under different water quality, you could conclude that down stream it has had for a log time poor water quality and upstream high water quality.
the same logic can be applied to this tank, the NO3 must be high enough to grow green algae, although no aglea or slight red algae is also could be considered an over stocking problem in a fish only system. At the same time the clownfish are still spawning, hence it is within the limits for the fish to be happy (biotic test). Getting back to the forum in a freshwater tank with loads of plants (biotic healthy!!) windows south facing could be Dougy for pH fluctuations.
That would be a ecumenical matter!!!

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