Is sunlight bad for tanks?

H

hmph

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Jul 20, 2003
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After a few years of freshwater fish rearing, I noticed that tanks that get direct sunlight always clouds and algae comes about pretty soon. Is there a way to allow tanks to bask in direct sunlight (hence without need for lighting to be on during the day) and not be affected by algae?:confused:
 
sunlight doesnt cause algae.

excess nutrients plus light cause algae.

Keep the nutrients (nitrates, phosphates, silicates) low and you will never have algae problems. A tank with live plants will outcompete the algae for these nutrients preventing the algae from growing, and there are numerous other ways to control these nutrients.
 
perhaps another point to note is i am living near the Equatorial belt and whereas most people in this forum are residing in temperate zones.

humidity hovers around 95% here and temperature ranges from 28 degrees celsius to 32 degrees.

a good local site you might wanna check out is http://www.arowanaclub.com/

lotsa relevant info for ppl living in the tropics with arowanas.

cheers :D
 
The whole back side of my house is one long window and none of my tanks on the first floor have algae. The front room tank is also infront of a window and gets direct sunlight as well. So do the tanks in the bedroom, oh and the one next to the picture window in the bathroom. None of them have excessive algae. Like slip said its caused by excessive nutrients.

Can someone fill me in. If algae is underwater what would humidity have to do with it? Wouldn't the humidity be 100 percent all of the time? And ambient air temp? If my tank is heated to 79 degrees what would it matter if the room was 30, or 100, as long as the tank was 79?:confused:
 
Yep...I agree. My Frontosa tank gets sunlight from a window above it. It shines down on the surface of the water and creates an awesome shimmering effect on the rocks and substrate. Not to mention the fact that it shows off the fronts colors better than any commercial light I've ever used. I get a slight haze of algea on one side of the tank, but it comes off easy during water changes. With the exception of fry tanks, or tanks in which I am conditioning pairs for breeding, display tanks only get 1 feeding per day. It doesnt freak me out if I forget a feeding or two.
 
In her Ecology of Planted Aquariums, Diana Walstad sings the praises of natural sunlight. In my tanks that get it, sunlight can be quite pretty. It's the first light that the corals in the nano see in the morning, and they perk right up. Just can't figure out how to turn it back on after I get home from work at night.
 
Hey, I'm just going on what people have said here many times. It hasn't happened to me so I wouldn't know, but I really can't say how many times people say that they have algae and someone else says to move their tank so its not in the sun, and the person does it and the algae is gone.
 
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