Natural reef lighting

[FocusFin]

My wife has been after me to install solar tubes in our dark hallway and after seeing this set up I might put them in, just not where she wants

This tank has three solar tubes for lighting with supplemental actinics and apparently has enough light for SPS.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Agnate]

Have you been able to find a price quote on this?

[FocusFin]

Have you been able to find a price quote on this?

The tubes themselves run $300-$400 per and of course have to be installed but it's not terribly complicated for someone who's handy.

Let me clarify, I'm not intending to remove my lighting and replace it with solar tubes but if it does provide sufficient lighting it opens up many possibilities for those planning permanent builds. Personally, I would not consider something like this on the basis of saving money alone unless I had a very large tank.

[Hookup]

I think these are awesome for comercial use.  For example, if I were going to set a frag-ing business and sell frags, I'd want to have this type of system as my primary lights to reduce costs and increase profit...

However, in a home-setting, when I want to look at my tank, i want to look at it... and I do not want the fact that a cloudy day, or snow-storm or some other non-controllable event has my system looking less than "perfect".   I can see the cost-savings, no question, but i cannot imagine having people over for dinner/lunch and my system looking like crap simply because it was cloudy that day... VAIN?  yeah, maybe... but heck, I didn't start a reef tank to save the planet, I wanted something beautiful/colorful/wonderful to look at...

[bitterman]

Why not find a happy medium. Still go green and supplement if needed T5HO on each side of the Tubes? Might save the planet some on the mean time also  and save the hydro bill. You could even setup an automatic system to turn on 1 bulb at a time automatically suplement based on the weather to keep lighting constant.  and that would be cool

Just playing the devils advocate on the other side of the street

B

[FocusFin]

Why not find a happy medium. Still go green and supplement if needed T5HO on each side of the Tubes? Might save the planet some on the mean time also  and save the hydro bill. You could even setup an automatic system to turn on 1 bulb at a time automatically suplement based on the weather to keep lighting constant.  and that would be cool

Just playing the devils advocate on the other side of the street

B

Yeah, I was going to say why not have it set up to supplement when the light level reaches a certain "minimum" similar to an electronic eye for street lights.

With actinics:

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Hookup]

Good suggestions for sure, though i'm not sure how practical it would be...  How do you get all that lighting equip packed into your setup... though I'm sure if you tried hard enuf you'd find a way... Having extra-lighting at a flick-of-a-switch would be a great feature...

Now, I just have to win that $40million 649, have a solarium room designed around a new 500gallon display-system and use this setup/idea... so where did I put my retirement plan/ticket???


Ahh to dream.. $40million buys happiness... I'm positive it does...

[Stussi613]

I'm sure that you could build something similar to this using sonotube if you could find the right kind of reflective material to use inside the tube and something to put at the top of it to collect the light/keep the weather out of it.  At the end of the day it might end up being around the same price though...

The tubes themselves run $300-$400 per and of course have to be installed but it's not terribly complicated for someone who's handy.

Let me clarify, I'm not intending to remove my lighting and replace it with solar tubes but if it does provide sufficient lighting it opens up many possibilities for those planning permanent builds. Personally, I would not consider something like this on the basis of saving money alone unless I had a very large tank.

[FocusFin]

I'm sure that you could build something similar to this using sonotube if you could find the right kind of reflective material to use inside the tube and something to put at the top of it to collect the light/keep the weather out of it.  At the end of the day it might end up being around the same price though...

I suspect they are similar to reflectors in that the materials used are fairly high quality and replicating that may cost as much as buying ready to go.

[FocusFin]

I posted this back in May and was curious as to how this guy's tank was doing. It's quite amazing, the growth looks very good.



[attachment deleted by admin]

[Hookup]

Nice update!  Very clean and quite beautiful setup.

[Canoe]

The problem for us here around Ottawa is: what is the latitude of the tank this is working for. How many sunny days do they have there compared to here.

Also, what is the outside year-round temperature swing. Light tubes are a nice source of light but they are also sources of heat loss in colder climates, specifically have cold air drop off them as they suck the heat out of the air. A few years ago there was talk of insulating the inside of the tubes with a clear near perfectly transparent insulating nano aero-jel, but I haven't heard anything more about this.

The inside of sono-tubes can be lined with "space blankets" if you're so inclined. Others have used plastic mirror sheeting to build square columns below skylights to bring light further down into a structure, with "free-hanging" columns or built into a wall; uses stock well-insulated well-sealed skylights and easily DIY plastic mirrors.

If you have very high ceilings, perhaps a side enclosed "light shelf" could be used to bring hitting the side of the building horizontally deep into a building. For usual residential/commercial use, the top of the shelf can be lined with plastic mirrors for the transmission portions and flat white paint for the use area, or if fully enclosed can be mirrored all around and even reflected downward through grid or other diffusion panel at the use area. Should be easily adapted for tank use.

For residential and commercial lighting, both the light columns and light shelves can easily incorporate powered light sources to provide light during dark hours. Spots within pointed in the desired direction of transmission utilize the same final light "fixtures" and yet block only a tiny portion of the natural light being transmitted.

Probably of more practical use once they're more commonly available, taking far less living space to route, is the optical fiber "light tubes". Mirrors within a domed top concentrate the roof top natural light onto one end of a fiber optic bundle four to eight inches across. The dones are larger than the low-end passive light tubes, but collect considerably more light. Day/season programmed motors adjust the mirrors throughout the day to maximize light gathering, powered by a small solar panel within the dome. Portions of the bundle are routed to different locations deep within the home, providing "free" bright natural light. Uses "factory-seconds" fiber optic cable that isn't good enough for data transmission use, so the cost is relatively low. I don't recall all, but the light for a walk-in closet only required a half inch bundle from the original collection bundle. Light only available during the day, and as there is no efficient way to incorporate a powered light source into the bundle, a second or hybrid light fixture is required. A very specular light source that can be diffused as required at the use end. Would make for bright specular light source for an aquarium.