Natural sunlight reef lighting supplement?

[BonsaiNut]

I live in Southern California and have ultra high electrical rates as well as a stable supply of "free" sunlight. Anyone with any experience using sunlight to supplement their reef lighting? I once had a 20L set up in front of a window when I was in the process of setting up a new system (the 20L had no light hood or cover whatsoever) and the reef critters in the tank thrived, including a pair of clowns who started spawning.

Anyone tried a reef tank with sunlight?

[Johnnyfishkiller]

The waikiki public aquarium does it. I've seen a few outdoor tank pics, but I don't know where. Try searching for them. Hawaii has more intense sunlight than California, so it could only be a supplement. The downside may be algea growth.

[Chin_monster]

My tank gets a beam of sunlight that sweeps across it each afternoon. The animals on that side of the tank seem much happier and grow faster.

[Project Reef]

Bonsai!

I'm sure you've read Anthony's Calfo's book. He highly recommends natural sunlight. He is Philly and he uses natural sunlight, that's one of the cities with the most rainfall! I'm sure us being in Cali will get much better use out of n.s. Go for it. P.S. I'd love to come by one day and check out your tank and various clowns.

[Danables]

have have two 10inch tubes maybe i put them in wronge but not that much light comes out of them. but mainly why i did it was its a INWALL tank and the room thats it is in doesnt get light in the moring, so now the tank isnt a black hole at 8am
http://www.danables.com/tank3.jpg

[mojodeli]

I'm in Phoenix. I just moved here a few weeks ago and am in the process up setting up m tank. Currently I have a few corals and anemones sitting in a 33 gal rubbermaid located in one of my bathrooms. This particular room has a sun tube shining drectly on the container this is the ONLY source of lighting that I have been useing for the past month and everything is doing far better than with my 250 MH set up.

I don't know anything about sun tubes and this is one of many in my house when I bought it. I would throughly recommend this source of free lighting to anyone in the sun belt. It does help that Phoenix has 320+ sunny days per year. I am currently investigating having three such tube installed over my tanks.