Sunlight And The Home Aquaria

[cbianco]

Hello all

My aquarium recieves about 3-4 hours of bright indirect sunlight per day. Inhabitants such as zoanthus and my starburst greet the sunlight by opening their polyps and extenting their branches. In my opinion I would say that my corals are happy recieving the sunlight.

The sunlight illuminates my tank (roughly) from the hours of 8:00am to 12:00pm. My lighting cycle is 3:00pm to 9:00pm. Between the hours of 12:00pm and 3:00pm the aquarium is not completely dark but not hardly illuminated.

Unfortunately, I cannot artificially light my tank more than six hours without excessive algea growth. Heat is not a problem in the tank.

Is it acceptable to light my tank in a split schedule like this?

Is the sunlight harming any of the inhabitants in my tank?

Does anyone have experience (or knowledge) regarding sunlight and the home aquaria?

I appreciate any information you can provide on this subject! :)

Christopher

[pickle311]

I don't see how it could harm anything seeing as how everything we keep has survived in the wild for thousands of years with only sunlight. Just so you know, a lot of people are also starting to use the solar tubes that go throught the roof of your house to help with the lighting on their tanks.

[cbianco]

When you say solar tubes do you mean something similar to a sunroof?

The reason I ask these questions is because the tank inhabitants are used to the artificial lighting. I was wondering if this recent change would effect them in any way.

Christopher

[alton]

solatube.com is the website. There is a contractor out of Austin that I got pricing from on a project that I was bidding. It gets cheaper when you add two or more. They also have lighting options for when the sun is not out. Business companies are starting to use these for what I think it's called Green House Discounts? We where not awarded the project so I don't know how good they are? If you do go this route please let me know how it works out?

[v2k]

I just read, I think in Mike Paletta's book actually, which reviews all sorts of aquaria, or maybe it was Calfo's book on Coral propagation, that there is nothing like a blast of natural sunlight, that it is good.

I have my 55 gallon aquarium in our sunroom about 10 feet from a bank of windows, and I don't have any problem with nuisance algae, I don't have enough artificial light yet either though.

[Instar]

A split lighting cycle is actually quite useless for the photosynthetic life in the tank, especially the simple algaes that color your zoos and corals. It is time vs intensity of the correct light wave that excites the algae cells and begins the cycle of photosynthesis. It has two stages and to get into the productive stage II it takes several hours. The sun gets the cycle jump started and thats about when your sun light goes away and your tank is dark so it has to start all over again on your lights. Then there are the cloudy mornings, and that light is not very productive at all. Artificial lights for 3 to 9 is only six hours, and thats not long enough for most things and will not initiate the second stage of photosynthesis or spawning, etc. Cleaning crews will take care of the algae as will a balanced water chemistry. If you use more actinic lighting in your bulbs, algae will be less of a situation too. I run my lights with the sun at the same time and when I have clean up crews at work and do my water maint, alages are not a problem.

[Thunderkat]

A split lighting cycle is actually quite useless for the photosynthetic life in the tank, especially the simple algaes that color your zoos and corals. It is time vs intensity of the correct light wave that excites the algae cells and begins the cycle of photosynthesis. It has two stages and to get into the productive stage II it takes several hours. The sun gets the cycle jump started and thats about when your sun light goes away and your tank is dark so it has to start all over again on your lights. Then there are the cloudy mornings, and that light is not very productive at all. Artificial lights for 3 to 9 is only six hours, and thats not long enough for most things and will not initiate the second stage of photosynthesis or spawning, etc. Cleaning crews will take care of the algae as will a balanced water chemistry. If you use more actinic lighting in your bulbs, algae will be less of a situation too. I run my lights with the sun at the same time and when I have clean up crews at work and do my water maint, alages are not a problem.

That being said, is it useless to have actinics in a fuge?

[JimD]

Not so much useless as un-necessary as long as your intent is to grow algae.

[LoneStar]

I found this on Reefcentral a few weeks ago. Pretty interesting on that he uses mainly natural sunlight in that room for his tank.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=696831

[pickle311]

A split lighting cycle is actually quite useless for the photosynthetic life in the tank, especially the simple algaes that color your zoos and corals. It is time vs intensity of the correct light wave that excites the algae cells and begins the cycle of photosynthesis. It has two stages and to get into the productive stage II it takes several hours. The sun gets the cycle jump started and thats about when your sun light goes away and your tank is dark so it has to start all over again on your lights. Then there are the cloudy mornings, and that light is not very productive at all. Artificial lights for 3 to 9 is only six hours, and thats not long enough for most things and will not initiate the second stage of photosynthesis or spawning, etc. Cleaning crews will take care of the algae as will a balanced water chemistry. If you use more actinic lighting in your bulbs, algae will be less of a situation too. I run my lights with the sun at the same time and when I have clean up crews at work and do my water maint, alages are not a problem.


the great debate, I always believed the same thing so please explain why so many of the large, successful, sps tanks are shortening their photoperiod? I've read where several people only run their lights 4 to 5 hours per day and they outstanding growth and coloration from their corals. To be honest, this method makes more sense to me because the earth rotates so the sun does not sit directly over one patch of the reef for 10 to 12 hours like our lights do. In reality, the reef is only under direct sunlight for a couple of hours. I also realize that out lights aren't as intense as the sun, be we also have much less water for the light to penetrate and with the reflectors that most people are running now, we aren't too far from natural sunlight now. :blink

[witecap4u]

The marine park in Israel, on the Red Sea has a huge cube completely lit by the sun. There's some picsin my gallery.

[gjuarez]

Hey Pickle, initially I was thinking the same thing but most succesful reefers experimenting with this phenomena are not shortening their photoperiods, they are just shortening the time they have their metal halides on. Bomber, from reefcentral, has one of the most amazing tanks and he only runs his halides for 2 hours a day. THe rest of the time he has his VHO actinics on. He is living proof that it can be done. Bomber, IMO, is one of the most influential reefkeepers on reefcentral. Although he wasnt the pioneer of the Berlin system he was the one who brought it back to life. Because of him a lot of reefers have now gone bare bottom, and he was the pioneer of using starboard. HE also came up with the concept of cooking rocks. His proffesion and his number of posts on RC lead me to believe that he is a credible source. He has difficult to keep corals from the carribean and they are light demanding. IF he says that he can keep those corals with a very short metal halide photoperiod then I believe him, but let us not forget that he has impeccable parameters and he is married to his tank.
Jerry

[Thunderkat]

Hey Thunderkat, initially I was thinking the same thing but most succesful reefers experimenting with this phenomena are not shortening their photoperiods, they are just shortening the time they have their metal halides on. Bomber, from reefcentral, has one of the most amazing tanks and he only runs his halides for 2 hours a day. THe rest of the time he has his VHO actinics on. He is living proof that it can be done. Bomber, IMO, is one of the most influential reefkeepers on reefcentral. Although he wasnt the pioneer of the Berlin system he was the one who brought it back to life. Because of him a lot of reefers have now gone bare bottom, and he was the pioneer of using starboard. HE also came up with the concept of cooking rocks. His proffesion and his number of posts on RC lead me to believe that he is a credible source. He has difficult to keep corals from the carribean and they are light demanding. IF he says that he can keep those corals with a very short metal halide photoperiod then I believe him, but let us not forget that he has impeccable parameters and he is married to his tank.
Jerry

Hmm, ok, I was just wondering about actinics since I am upgrading my current lights (to halides and 10k+actinics) and going to just buy another 50 gallon tank (fuge upgrade) to use my current lights (which have dual 10k and dual actinics) for my fuge. Was just wondering if I should take out the actinics and replace with 10ks for the algae.

[gjuarez]

LOL. Sorry, I actually meant pickle113 instead of thunderkat on that post. I am going to edit it. ANyways, I would go with the 10ks.
Jerry

[cbianco]

Wow I never expected to get so many posts on this topic.

v2k

How long have you been running your tank without lighting (besides sunlight)? How are the inhabitants doing?

Instar

If a split lighting schedule is useless, should I bump my artificial lights up to come on after the sunlight goes away? Would it make a difference?

LoneStar

Great link!

Unfortunately, I am not running MH and Actinics. I am running PC due to cost concern (plus I have a NC). Out of shear curiosity for those who have shortened their MH photoperiod, did you lengthen your actinic photoperiod to make up for the loss of light?

Thanks for all the responses! :)

Christopher

[Instar]

Actually the length of the photo period to some extent, depends on what you are trying to accomplish with that photo period. This is a very complex discussion and could get quite long. In general terms, the day light hours change through out the seasons except on the equator. (To begin: The hours of daylight are longer in summer, shorter in winter.) The water also does something when a point of light source is directed at it - it refracts that light and concentrates it. In other words, the water bends the light so it appears to be from more overhead than it really is. Combined with the effect of surface turbulence and reflection from a white sand bottom, there is a lot more direct light time than just when the sun is directly overhead. Go out and sit by your pool and see if the atmosphere doesn't provide for you to be well lit all day long. And well burnt if you stay all day. It does a little of the same thing, it bends the rays of the sun a little, water bends it more and salt water bends the light rays the most. That said, its not just peak intensity hours that count for events. With artificial lighting, to induce spawning on demand, it takes a 14 hour photo period in many cases. The lights are mostly overhead to simulate what the atmosphere and the water do, to provide for relative overhead light.

Next to consider is the complete photosynthetic cycle. To light a coral to adequate intensity long enough for the cholorphyll A and B to complete their cycles and produce energy, IE: glycol for systhesis, respiration does not take 14 hours necessarily. It does take a ramp up time to excite chlorophyll A for the first part of the cycle. That, when fully activated, will excite and activate chlorophyll B. It is B that completes the cycle of photosynthesis to produce the necessary products for food from the sun. The greatest debate is how long of a time is it required to have B in production, or how long it too long? How long is too short? If B doesn't get any time, what good did turning the lights on do at all? We all want longevity, all sorts of vitamin complexes, immunity to such an extent that we buy bottles forms of it or enriched foods. Why not let the coral produce its own with an adequate photo period instead? We can not tell if the corals we have are from 12 inches of water or 12 feet. The best we can do with artificial light is to provide enough of what we can afford, long enough for the correct health effect. For example: a NO tube with a PAR value of 250 takes twice to 3x the photo period of a HO with a PAR value of 450 in the correct wave length for what you are growing. We know that things like caulerpa in a refugium do very well on the more yellow light from 10K to 5K, actinics not required, and the corals from deeper depth or more reactive xooxanthellae to the blue actinic spectrum love this wave area. Since the bluer light grows less simple nusiance algaes, its a more desireable light for our use so we don't need so many snails and hermits. But, our corals also use the less blue waves to get the photosynthesis started. In a tank our water is not as clear as the ocean. Redox and dilution and trace elements oxidize or precipitate nitogenous wastes to keep the water pristime and able to transmit more light in the natural ocean than our tank water can. Its the waste nitrogens that help algaes grow in the yellower light spectrum and make our water less able to transmit light all the way to the bottom.

To translate this: yes I would turn the lights on sooner to continue what the sunlight started. This may mean you will need to cut some lights before the normal 9pm time so you don't get a huge algae bloom. And thats going to cut into your evening viewing but there's a solution for that. You can run some NO actinics in the evening for your viewing pleasure and that will enhance the coraline growth as well as allow for more view time for you. Those lights will not grow a ton of slime algaes in there for you to deal with either. And you will be shocked at all the cool colors that will display themselves after a fairly short time of stretching your viewing time in the eveing with a NO actinic bulb.

If you do eventually decide to increase the photo period length in total hours, do it gradually and take the time necessary to evaluate it all. The micro life in there can ramp up to take care of the slime and simple algaes if given time enough. And you may need more snails if you increase the total hours. I normally have several hundred in my 125 along with micro hermits and the tangs too. The tank is really alive. There are no absolutes here because of different bulbs, ballasts, ages, total voltage at your outlets, etc. Lots of variables, so you just have to take it slow. The one definite thing that I would do is to turn the lights on soon enough to take advantage of what the sunlight started in the corals. That way you don't have to start all over with your lights and never really achieve the end result. Now there is one more thing. It could be that a number of your colonies have adjusted to this split lighting and shifted color spectrums within the xooxanthellae to adapt somewhat to that. They may react a little but in the long run, you will achieve a better success rate in keeping things and adding new things. My corals and anemones really love the late afternoon when they get both the artificial lights and direct sunlight. Its their most active daylight hours, after the artificial lights have already been on about 7 hours. The B part of photosynthesis is taking place during that intense light time the way my lights are set up and the refugium lights are off during that time so its primarily in the dark for the reverse period.

Lots of people experiment with things that have been tried before and write about it like its never been done. One of them is the shorter photo periods. In order to evaluate this, you have to know a lot of details that are not published such as light intervals, water type, clarity, relative refractive index, treatments, reflectors, measurements, etc. Personally I am sure that a cycle something like 8 to 12 hours MH with 12 to 14 hours of actinics will work given all the variables. I normally use a bunch of timers and increase actinics from one to full on then turn on the 10K's. 10K off first, then stagger down the actinics to match a more natural "sunrise" and "sunset" effect.

[cbianco]

Larry

Unfortunately I just found this post now @ 10:40. I wish I found it when you posted it, lol, I appreciate the effort you put into this response!!!

Questions

How does the chlorophyll B know it is time to "activate?" (i.e. certain amount of time, etc...)

You mention NO actinics for evening viewing. What about PC actinics? Do these provide the same amount of "protection" from algae growth?



Now there is one more thing. It could be that a number of your colonies have adjusted to this split lighting and shifted color spectrums within the xooxanthellae to adapt somewhat to that. They may react a little but in the long run, you will achieve a better success rate in keeping things and adding new things.


In this quote are you saying that it is possible that the corals adjusted to the split photoperiod AND they are still able to complete the cholorphyll A and B cycle? (Just curious :) )

Thanks for all the help!!!

Christopher

[gjuarez]

[quote="Instar"]
Lots of people experiment with things that have been tried before and write about it like its never been done. One of them is the shorter photo periods. In order to evaluate this, you have to know a lot of details that are not published such as light intervals, water type, clarity, relative refractive index, treatments, reflectors, measurements, etc. Personally I am sure that a cycle something like 8 to 12 hours MH with 12 to 14 hours of actinics will work given all the variables. quote]


WOw, great info Larry. I had never taken into consideration this info before. Its good to know. But why is it that people are having great success doing this? I think Pete, our fellow president, has shortened his metal halide photoperiod as well and he has had great growth in my opinion. Is there an explanation for this? How are these people able to achieve positive results? BTW, the meeting at Stephen's house was the first meeting I ever attended and I thought your presentation on Aptasia was awesome. We drove five hours to get there and it was worth it.
Jerry

[gjuarez]

Larry, I forgot to ask you. What do you mean by water type?

[Instar]

Ok, O'll try to get all this answered.

So far as the second half of the photosynthetic cycle,
let's defer that one for the moment and just agree to recognize
that photosynthesis works like that. Its exposure time x intensity.

PC actinics in the 420 nm wave known also as the 03 actinic will be just fine if you have or can get them.
There is a difference if you do step down to one NO 03 actinic though. Its quite
noticable in the after hours glow that you see. Then go down to moon lights from there.
If that won't fit or work, the pc's are fine. Maybe you have 2 and can go down to
just one for the last hour or so.

So far as markedly reduced halide times consistently and growth vs color,
measurements before that reduced cycle and long after the effects
of it were diminished would have to be taken. And what colors are
we talking about? Just blue-greens or all the shades of hot pink
and bi and tri colored polyps too? All the spectrum will not be there without
all the light. Thats just physics. There is a great deal of available
light with different ballast brands and bulbs. Also, the bulb
deterioration with time of use. It may work today, but, will it end
with a tank of RTN? We'll see. If pc actinics are the other lights
on when MH's are off, we already ruled out some years ago
that corals can't be kept under that kind of lighting? If we are not
talking about sps, then high intensity lighting is a matter of another
great debate and many non-sps tanks are very successful without
any halides. In fact, a few have learned to keep some species of sps with
a mix of many pc's quite well. (although that is really expensive)

Water type: Trace element concentration, natural sea water, IO vs bioassay. Different
brands have different concentrations of trace metals in them. The more additives,
the less light the water will transmit because there are
molecules in the way and not all of them pass the light without defraction.
Its perhaps not perceiveable but, its still a very small factor IMO.

Your type of corals may have adjusted to the point they can complete a little basic
needs in the photosynthetic cycle or just learn to live without it and expend the energy,
but, its extremely likely that only a few of them get a limited chance at adctivation of the
B chlorophyll. This part needs to take place for a couple hours, not just an hour normally.
The fact that your tank is dark for 3 hours just means they cool off and have to excite all over
again. 3 hours of sunlight is a good start and then all that energy goes to waste unless you bring your
lights on at around noon perhaps.

Did I get all the questions here?
Thanks for the compliments.

[gjuarez]

YOu got mine covered. THanks.