How often do you run your Protein Skimmer?

A

AquaThrills

How often do you run your proteing skimmer?

I'm considering cycling my skimmers use to two or three times a day instead of non-stop as it's currently running.

Any pro's or con's either way?
 
Cons = it pulls out less gunk, your oxygen levels will not stay quite as high, your nutrient levels may rise

Pros- save you 3 cents a day on electricity


I am slightly biased as I believe a good skimmer is one of the most essential parts of any tank
 
I only turn off the skimmer to clean it. That would be 5 minutes a day.
 
I have to agree with JasonJones. I'd just as soon let your skimmer run 24/7. I don't understand why you wouldn't want it running for just a short time 3x a day. That's like saying, okay I'm only going to keep my LR in for a week take it out a week and rinse/repeat.

That's just me though. Perhaps someone that practices this can chime in.
 
I run mine 24/7, shut down to drain/clean as needed and shut down for a short one hour period at night when feeding phyto.

Skimming demand load fluctuates in my tank based on feeding and occasionally some of the LPS give of some kind of water exchange that causes a increased watery skimmate. I can't predict this accurately so there is no reason to ever take the risk of shutting down the skimmer unattended.
 
Run mine 24/7 as well.

Marc, you clean your skimmer EVERY day? Holy cow, I wish I had that type of resolve, I'm good for once a week, most of the time. :oops:
 
I run mine 15min/hour during the day and 45 min/hour at night.
I have a cheap HOB Seaclone. I found that it does not pull out any less skimmate on the reduced schedule than it does running 24/7. And I have to tinker with the venturi less.
I can get away with it because I have a light bioload and filter sponges on 3 maxijets in addition to the sponge on the maxijet pushing the skimmer.
Unfortunatly I have to clean out the sponges every 10 days or so. :evil:
 
Hey all,

Thank you very much for your insight thus far. I like most nearly everyone in here run my skimmer 24/7. I'm currently researching the benefits of not skimming quite so heavily as I've done in the past.

I wasn't thinking of cycling my skimmer due to conservation of energy. $.03/day is not enough of a saving to warrant that. :lol:

About 4 may 5 years ago, there was much discussion on how we(aquarist) overskim our tanks and how we strip our water of needed beneficial elements and our reefs of needed "Dissolved Organic Material (DOM)." A slightly heavier nutrient load does have benefits to other organism so I've read.

I'm going to continue this research as both "Eric Borneman" and "Charles Delbeek" have had many publishings on the subject. I'd like to know what some of the other Marine Biologist,etc are reporting. I'll be reporting my discoveries if anyone else has interest.

The scientific aspect is just as valuable to me as how aquarist are being successful in their marine ecosystems.

Thanks again all for your insights.
 
I do not think anyone with any type of fish load has any problem at all with too little food for corals either in the case of bacterioplankton, organic matter, or dissolved organic matter. And if you keep a refugium, I would think you have all the zooplankton and phytoplankton you would need. Now if you had a coral only tank and had no fish to feed, I do not even think you would need a skimmer.
 
@masharp1126 wrote:
Marc said:
Yes. I intentionally buy a skimmer that is easy to take apart for daily cleaning, and make sure my sump gives me easy access to it. I believe that removing the skimmate daily in the cup as well as the riser neck gives me peak performance out of the skimmer.

Plus the smell of 23 hour old skimmate is far less than that of 168 hours. :wink:
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