Natural Sunlight - Good or Bad

patrickjbuie · Jan 23, 2021

I moved my aquarium during the summer, another story, but now my tank is getting about an hour or so of morning sunlight during the winter months when the sun in lower in the sky. Is this good or bad, should I block out the natural sunlight. I do seem to be getting a little more algae growth than I like. Any advice would be helpful. thanks

Saltyreef · Jan 23, 2021

Most of my tanks have always picked up some direct natural sunlight without too much issue.
I would assume algae would be the biggest issue here.
I just close my blinds the opposite way when the sun is lower in the sky.

Scubatricky · Jan 23, 2021

I think so long as it's not all day direct sunlight then there's no problems.

Remember that sunlight is useless without nutrition.

biocube40 · Jan 23, 2021

Yeah, so I have a tank that will be getting a fair amount of indirect sunlight (but no direct sunlight) from a south-facing window. @patrickjbuie , what do you mean by "more algae than you'd like"; how much, where in the tank and what type? Just trying to get an idea of what I might be getting myself into if I place the tank where I'm thinking...

patrickjbuie · Jan 24, 2021

biocube40 said:
Yeah, so I have a tank that will be getting a fair amount of indirect sunlight (but no direct sunlight) from a south-facing window. @patrickjbuie , what do you mean by "more algae than you'd like"; how much, where in the tank and what type? Just trying to get an idea of what I might be getting myself into if I place the tank where I'm thinking...

@biocube40 - basically it's brown algae and I am scraping the glass more often. It's nothing out of control, the snail keep up with most of it. I don't have blinds since the sun is coming thru a patio door, for now I am going to use a bed sheet to block it out when the sun is coming thru...

Hasted · Jan 24, 2021

I have a sliver of sun that makes it through the very edge of my blinds for a short amount of time. During winter it comes in from the left window hitting my rocks and in summer it comes from the other side through the right window.

I can see exactly where the sun hits my rocks currently as it has algae there.

biocube40 · Jan 24, 2021

patrickjbuie said:
@biocube40 - basically it's brown algae and I am scraping the glass more often. It's nothing out of control, the snail keep up with most of it. I don't have blinds since the sun is coming thru a patio door, for now I am going to use a bed sheet to block it out when the sun is coming thru...

Thanks guys! I may just go for it, and find a way to make it work... since it seems like a perfect spot for the tank. I'll probably post some individual pictures to give people a better idea of what I'm dealing with, prior to making the official plunge though.

Best of luck with your issue though, doesn't seem too bad... if I end up doing it I'll let you know if I find some tricks that work. Maybe just keeping phos. low and having an algae scrubber in the sump are my thoughts?

I just ran into ReefDudes' peninsula update video... I guess one year next to this huge window. I wonder what kind of algae, if any, he deals with and what remedies he has.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/RwFlCHtnjbw

Ippyroy · Jan 24, 2021

I have a 20 gallon tank that gets about 2 hours of light reflected off an aluminum roof for about 2 months in the summer. It was heating the tank up by about 2 -3 degrees. Fortunately I only have a few fish and a mangrove in it.