How often do you run protein skimmer??

[mpjmeyer]

Do you run your skimmer 24/7 or do you run a schedule?

 

[ndrwater]

24/7/365

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

24/7 here

 

[Dumaurier7]

I've heard that if you are keeping corals 24/7 isn't recommended.

 

[mhaun]

I ONLY back mine off for very short intervals if my nutrients drop below my target. Not the norm if you feed well.

If I drop below I will turn it off for a night and do a heavy feeding. Usually gets things back on track relatively quickly.

 

[Mini Coop]

I just went through this with nutrients dropping way low. I could tell because my elegance coral and my Acans were NOT happy. I turned mine off for a couple of nights, but on during the day, and all has stabilized where everyone is happy! Other than that, I run 24/7, only turn off if corals aren't happy and NO3 test is too low.

 

[david p.]

i believe people should give more details on their system when answering. Answers may vary from a LPS to a SPS tank, mix reef, Fish only. could be different answers also for different size of skimmer vs tank volume.
my 2 cents.

i have a 85 gal, SPS only system, with a 25g LPS system, all hooked to my 40B sump. I run skimmer 24/7 except for 2 feeding periods of 30min. i may stop my skimmer longer when feeding reef roid, phyto. skimmer is a ice cap k-160.

also, i would consider my current fish load low to medium.

 

[reefmagic]

24/7/365

 

[coral-boss]

What they said [emoji121]️ all day, every day

 

[Daniel Strickland]

Our tank is in our family/living room.. so I have it set up to shut down from 7 to 10 every night.. my skimmer is a RO 202 in a 200g system. New tank and low bioload but haven't seen any problems yet.. when my ATS gets going better I want to try to leave it off longer..

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I would run it full time to start. You need air and good ph. Plus in a new tank it'll take out a lot of little things you don't want. Try wet and also try it dry. It's new so the break in may dive you nuts. But don't sweat it esp foe the first several weeks while you cycle imo.

 

[jsker]

All day, everyday.

 

[DarkSky]

I run mine 24/7/365 in my SPS tank, but I forgot to turn it back on after some maintenance this Friday and left for the weekend. I've never seen my corals looking so colorful and as much polyp extension as I did today.

I'll still run it all the time but I think when I'm about to have people over I'll shut it down for a few days prior. My nutrients are fairly low but I do keep them above absolute zero. I should have tested my nutrients before I switched it back on.

 

[Dumaurier7]

I intend to start running mine on a schedule when I introduce corals in my tank, I think this would make more sense.

 

[ahiggins]

I run my heavily stocked tank 24/7
My light stock tank-frag tank-only gets it 16 hours a day. I turn it off at night (mostly because its noisy haha)

 

[Dumaurier7]

If you think about it, corals are filter feeders and we also dose food in various forms , if you run the skimmer continuously all it is going to do is remove the nutrients from the water! It would be ok on a FOWLER tank though.

 

[trido]

24/7 on my SPS system. I feed very heavy though, at least six times a day into the display tank.

 

[Dumaurier7]

Not meaning to criticize, if it works for you fine but I don't understand why you you'll feed 6 times per day and remove the food with your skimmer then throw it away![emoji32]

 

[mpjmeyer]

Should I run skimmer during cycling or no?

 

[Dumaurier7]

You can , it would help with aeration , you wouldn't pull much skim mate.