For those who have a Skimmer.

[ovenmitt]

Do you run your skimmer 24/7? or do you unplug it for and run it just for X amount of hours on certain days? Our setup we don't have a sump or a filter besides the LR and our LFS told us we are stripping our water by running the skimmer all the time. How true is this?

 

[20galfowlr]

i dont understand how you would be stripping your water, and stripping it of what i dont know, but on my setup the water passes through the skimmer then the natural biological filtration, or bioballs..
thats just my opinion

 

[myreef05]

I did not believe in a skimmer at all until I saw for myself the crap it pulls out of the water. I run mine all the time unless I have to dose something. Maintenance also requires it to be off but just for like 5 minutes a week or everyother week.

 

[dawman]

Your LFS has misinformed you . Skimmers remove the crap filters can`t . Since you don`t have a filter , you should be running the skimmer 24/7 .

 

[rocksalt]

By all means keep that thing running! As mentioned earlier by another member, it pulls out more gunk than you realize. I take the top receptical off every two or three days to clean it out. It is an intrical part of your filtration system. Else there would be allot of cr@p (no pun intended) floating around in your water jacking up your levels. This is only my opinion and from personal experience. Everyone has a method that works for them but I have never heard of a successful tank w/o a skimmer.

 

[azfishgal]

I run mine 24/7, except when I feed, all pumps (minus the powerheads) are turned off for like five minutes, then everything gets turned back on.

 

[farslayer]

I run mine 24/7 as well except for when I need to do a water change or other maintenance which requires still water (like blasting aiptasia).

 

[theappe3]

24hr skimmer running is a VERY good idea.

 

[ovenmitt]

Sounded like he was saying by running it all the time we are pulling good things out of the tank that we need. What they meant by that I don't know other then maybe chems we add but that is why we add them all the time anyways is to keep the levels where they should be.

 

[farslayer]

Skimming can't pull out elements like that, your LFS guy is wrong. Skimmers remove floating particles in the water which will eventually decompose into nitrate. The bubbles they create will have this gunk on their surface based on a nice little law of physics. The bubbles move up and pop, spilling the junk on their surface into the collection cup. Elements and minerals are dissolved and would not be on the surface of a bubble, so he's just wrong about that.

 

[rbaldino]

Originally Posted by Farslayer
Skimming can't pull out elements like that, your LFS guy is wrong. Skimmers remove floating particles in the water which will eventually decompose into nitrate. The bubbles they create will have this gunk on their surface based on a nice little law of physics. The bubbles move up and pop, spilling the junk on their surface into the collection cup. Elements and minerals are dissolved and would not be on the surface of a bubble, so he's just wrong about that.
Actually, skimmers do remove some vital elements, but hopefully not at a rate faster than they can be replaced through water changes. Their benefits are far outweighed by this, however.

 

[farslayer]

Originally Posted by rbaldino
Actually, skimmers do remove some vital elements, but hopefully not at a rate faster than they can be replaced through water changes. Their benefits are far outweighed by this, however.
Strongly agree

 

[teen]

i run mine a few days a week. if it stops pulling junk, i leave it off for a few days. (you have to recognize the difference between not pulling junk out of the water, and the skimmer being dirty and in need of a cleaning.).
ive left my skimmer off for as long as 2 weeks with no problems, im sure i could go a full month.