Running protein skimmer??????

[rbursek]

I have a 120gal, 150lb LR, 30 gal Fuge, with Cheato, and 30lb of LR in it run the lights on it reversed, tank has 2 96 watt Atinics and 2 250 watt 1400k MH. 2 Tangs, 4 Chromies, 3 Cardinals, 1 Basslet, 1 Blue Star Leaped Wrasse, 1 Mandarin, crabs and snails, Cats eye, Long tentacle plate, Hammer and Frog spawn Coral. I do a 25% water change every 2 weeks, and drip Kalk. Water parameters run consistently Trites 0, Trates 15-25, KH 10, Calc. 400, Phos .04. I have been running my Protein skimmer 24/7. I want to put it on a timer. I would like to hear from people who have and there results, and how to do it, at night? or intermediately? or how? I feed about 5 pm.
Bob

 

[trido]

I know it doesnt answer your question but, My .02 With a fish bioload like yours and corals in the mix I wouldnt even consider running my skimmer less than 24/7. The fish make waste all day, and, why do you want to mess with a good thing. It seems what you have now is working for you.


Dont mess with success. It is a great recipe for disaster.

 

[Anonymous]

24/7 is also my suggestion as IME that's worked best for me. Why are you thinking of putting it on a timer?

 

[shavo]

hey we had this argument a few months back about running a skimmer or not for 24/7 and I guess there are benefits, but I have the same set up as you do. 125 gallon tank, maybe a little more live rock than you and a 35 gallon fuge and I run my skimmer on the night cycle, not 24/7
about 14 hours or so. I have no ill effects yet and everything has been really stable to this point, have not lost any livestock in over a year or so. corals or fish.
I know this goes against 99 % of everybody here but it is just the way I have done it and it is working for me.

 

[Anonymous]

it takes a skimmer time to 'redial' itself in every time you turn it off-in effect, you end up properly skimming almost never

running a skimmer only part of the day is simply ridiculous-i could never understand why anyone would ever even think of doing this-and anyone who thinks they get better results than 24/7 is deluding themselves completely

 

[shavo]

lol vitz tell me how you really feel !! Sadly, here I go again defending myself. I disagree with you. First thing, since you know, how long does it take for a skimmer to get dialed in? is this 5 minutes or a few hours or days? I watch my skimmer go on and it skims the same every night just about and oddly enough it seems to be just about the same amount of time to empty the skimate as I did when i was running 24/7. There are people that don't use a skimmer at all and do enough water changes. So what about those people? Are they also rediculous?? If there are people that do not use a skimmer and have success then what about me who has it running 14 hours a day?

 

[Anonymous]

lol vitz tell me how you really feel !! Sadly, here I go again defending myself. I disagree with you. First thing, since you know, how long does it take for a skimmer to get dialed in? is this 5 minutes or a few hours or days? I watch my skimmer go on and it skims the same every night just about and oddly enough it seems to be just about the same amount of time to empty the skimate as I did when i was running 24/7. There are people that don't use a skimmer at all and do enough water changes. So what about those people? Are they also rediculous?? If there are people that do not use a skimmer and have success then what about me who has it running 14 hours a day?

either use it properly, or don't use it at all, imo

fwiw, i run my 25-ish gal nano skimmerless-but i do wc's religiously

a skimmer takes far longer than 5 minutes to redial itself in

there just isn't ANY logical/good reason to run a skimmer 1/2 of the time, imo

 

[l3xxx]

i have to agree with vitz. running a skimmer 24/7 will always be better than only running it 14 hours a day. it would be like shutting down your filter durring the day, or just not alowing any water into the sump. But if everything is working out fine for shavo, and his tank inhabitants dont pollute the water as much, he should keep his 14 hour skimming process going. hes actually smarter than most of us, hes saving on electricity :wink:

 

[stubbsz]

I've thought it would be nice to run mine for the period when the lights were off.. any help reducing the heaters in my tank in CA at this time of year would be a boon. However, I could run it off an external pump to acheive the same thing. I've personally decided to keep it running as my pump is iffy on restarts.

But don't be so blase about saying skimmers take forever to dial in. My downdraft dials in, in about 30 minutes. That doesn't seem so long to me.

-Adrian

 

[Anonymous]

I've thought it would be nice to run mine for the period when the lights were off.. any help reducing the heaters in my tank in CA at this time of year would be a boon. However, I could run it off an external pump to acheive the same thing. I've personally decided to keep it running as my pump is iffy on restarts.

But don't be so blase about saying skimmers take forever to dial in. My downdraft dials in, in about 30 minutes. That doesn't seem so long to me.

-Adrian

i'm curious to know how you've measured the various properties of your skimmate to know that the skimmer is skimming after 30 minutes of operation the same way it does after 24-48 hours

 

[Anonymous]

I don't see whay anyone would invest in a piece of gear that takes crap out of your fish tank and not run it 24/7 no matter how quickly it gets started each time.

 

[stubbsz]

I've thought it would be nice to run mine for the period when the lights were off.. any help reducing the heaters in my tank in CA at this time of year would be a boon. However, I could run it off an external pump to acheive the same thing. I've personally decided to keep it running as my pump is iffy on restarts.

But don't be so blase about saying skimmers take forever to dial in. My downdraft dials in, in about 30 minutes. That doesn't seem so long to me.

-Adrian

i'm curious to know how you've measured the various properties of your skimmate to know that the skimmer is skimming after 30 minutes of operation the same way it does after 24-48 hours

Taste test.

 

[mr_X]

i turn mine off just to empty the collection cup and clean it.
i don't know about "dialing in", but it seems to get back to it's normal operating in a 30 seconds. if i am feeding the cup will fill faster, and if i turn it off then, and empty it then, it will resume just as if i never turned it off.
same goes with times that i'm not feeding. where do you all get this "dialing in time" information from?

what made me run mine 24/7 is a statement that "snowmansnow" made:
a skimmer cleans water right? so why would I turn off the water cleaner????

and a statement that "thales" made:
I want it running to skim out nasties in case I am not home and there is some kind of biological event.

 

[shavo]

First thing let me tell you why I decided to run my skimmer on this schedule. When I had everything running all the time when the light schedule came on it would pop my fuse in the box and everything would shut off while I was at work. So i decided to put things on timers at different times to avoid the full load of everything electrical coming on at once. Since I did this I have not shut down from a fuse since. My skimmer appears to be functioning at the same pace as it was when it was running 24/7. I have the skimmer on the night cycle so it is the heaters, the light on the fuge, a power head or two, and the skimmer. The skimmer shuts off when the light cycle starts. The skimmer doesn't shut off until about 2 pm and I get home from work at 5 and feed and the skimmer comes back on around 10/11. I haven't had an issue with dialing in as of yet. It appears to function normally.

So how long does it take for a skimmer to dial back in? My skimmer appears to work properly from the begining, it has an initial load for the first half hour to an hour and then the skimate appears to calm a little.

 

[ChrisRD]

In addition to what has already been mentioned, another advantage to leaving a skimmer running 24/7 is aeration. IME they provide strong aeration which helps promote stable pH levels.

 

[Anonymous]

I've thought it would be nice to run mine for the period when the lights were off.. any help reducing the heaters in my tank in CA at this time of year would be a boon. However, I could run it off an external pump to acheive the same thing. I've personally decided to keep it running as my pump is iffy on restarts.

But don't be so blase about saying skimmers take forever to dial in. My downdraft dials in, in about 30 minutes. That doesn't seem so long to me.

-Adrian

i'm curious to know how you've measured the various properties of your skimmate to know that the skimmer is skimming after 30 minutes of operation the same way it does after 24-48 hours

Taste test.

:?

 

[shavo]

hey chris, if the skimmer is in the sump with the design of the fuge I have no air bubbles or very little if any make it back to the tank at all , most of the bubbles stay in the first chamber and the second chamber with the macros. is this still stablizing the PH? I suppose it would since the water is passing through the fuge. just curious. I may need to check my PH test kits with somebody elses for accuracy but it seems my PH never changes at all. day, night, whenever.

 

[SnowManSnow]

24/7

 

[ChrisRD]

Shavo, yeah you're still getting the aeration benefit. It's not the bubbles escaping the skimmer that are providing the aeration. Aeration (ie. gas exchange) not only helps stabilize pH but also helps maintain dissolved oxygen levels too.

Eric Borneman did a study on oxygen dynamics in aquaria. In the last of a 3 article series, he tested a small clownfish tank with and without the skimmer running.

From the article:
"The ten-gallon tank containing clownfish has been set up as an unskimmed system with what I consider to be an average stocking density of organisms for a tank of its size. I had assumed (wrongfully) that oxygen was maintained at high levels through the use of two powerheads that agitated the water's surface. However, once the lights went out and photosynthesis stopped, oxygen levels dropped quickly from a high of 78.7% of saturation to a hypoxic low of 16% of saturation. The levels were apparently low enough that each night, the clownfish would leave their anemone and adopt a position just under the water's surface directly above a powerhead. Out of concern, I then monitored the changes in oxygen levels at night using an airstone. Oxygen rose quickly and dramatically. At that point, I added a skimmer to the tank, with the result that oxygen is now maintained at much higher levels, ranging from a high of 130% of saturation to a low of 81.2% of saturation."

 

[shavo]

interesting article, so when the lights go out and photosynthisis stops my skimmer goes on and helps maintain dissolved oxygen levels??? isn't this good?