Natural Sunlight

[Mud]

Soft corals lit by the winter sun

A 40 gallon breeder fits perfectly on my woodbox. Thing is, the woodbox is opposite a 20-foot wall of southern windows. I've had half a dozen freshwater planted tanks set up here. The spot gets a tremendous amount of sunlight.

I grabbed a 6" Anchor Bubbler at the store today and wiretied an 11"x5" screen to it. I got a little rough with it. Punched in a couple Maxi Jet suction cups to hold the top of the screen.

I have an auto-top off switch, some heaters, and a mess of powerheads just begging for purpose.

Going to try SeaChem Matrix for biological filtration, for a minimalist look. No sand!

It gets wet tomorrow. Let's see what I can grow.

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Excuse the sideways photos, please.

[SantaMonica]

Nice window. I can't see how close it is to the tank but I presume the sun will hit the screen directly.

[Mud]

The scrubber is on the back wall. I put a couple light bulbs against the glass. It's the corals that are going to use the sun, not the scrubber. I want leathers, zoanthids, colts, mushrooms, etc. I will probably get a blue LED spotlight for actinics and displaying the tank in the evenings after sunset.

This tank will get about 5 hours per day of direct sun starting next month. The concrete fireplace acts as a great heat sink and will keep the temperature very stable.

[Mud]

Tank is almost two months old. I've got a dottyback and a damsel, a green brittle star, leather, xenia, capnella, red mushrooms, and GSP, but the zoanthids are really thriving like I've never been able to keep them before. Cyano was the first thing to colonize the big head of curio coral (pocillopora?) I stuck in the tank, but it's fading now. I'm impressed by the Seachem Matrix. It's almost buoyant; sometimes the waves from the surge blow it around, which is dramatic to watch. Nothing seems to want to grow on its surfaces either (except bacteria presumably).

Since the sunlight comes in from behind the viewer, everything in the tank is oriented toward the viewer's face! Makes me realize how unnatural electric reef lights are to corals. I do have the 453nm blue/magenta stunner strip on the tank just for viewing. I need to add the 445nm blue/10,000k white to balance out the pinks, though.

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[SantaMonica]

Yay natural light :)