Sun Pipe

[hamburglar]

Has anyone ever tried something like this for supplemental lighting?

http://www.sunpipe.com

[kram138]

A good friend had to install one in his house recently. It gives off pretty good light. Sort of like a soft glow that lights the room where it is nicely. It would be interesting to get a light meter and test the intensity. Hmmm

[Doug1]

Interesting, is this like an improvement on the "Solatube"? Depending on cost installed, I can see where it might help reduce the cost of lighting a large tank, or maybe even a good sized propagation setup.

[Doug1]

Ouch, I just looked at the price sheet and adding a couple of the medium sized units will cost more than retail on a dual MH ballast bulb setup, esp if you need a lot of pipe to span roof to ceiling.
On the other hand, over the long haul, the natural light added should benefit a reef and maybe allow one to use smaller lights, say 250 watts rather than 400, esp if you have a fish room thats a fairly low ceiling and don't need $100 worth of extension pipe to get light to the tank. OVer the long run it could pay off, but in the mean time reducxed electrical consumption is always a good thing

[hamburglar]

Yea, and just think about how hard your air conditioner has to work while those MH bulbs are running.

I am tempted to give it a shot on my next tank (when I build a house) A LFS here in town brought this stuff to my attention. The owner has got himself setup as a distributer, and he is going to see how well they work on a 240 gallon tank in his shop. He leases a lot of tanks, and he see's it as a way to save on lighting.

If he does it, I'm sure he will put a light meter under them. I will post pics and measurments if available.