Harmful effects of turning on and off the skimmer?

[Cwazy Clown]

So I've been running my skimmer on and off for the past 9 months... I run the skimmer during the day and turn it off at night. The reason is because my tank is right beside my head when I sleep and aquac's arent very quiet.

My main concern is that with 12 hours off, the water temperature in the aquac I can only imagine will go down... probably into the mid 60 degree mark (about how cold my room gets at night)

Could this have an effect on my my phosphate/nitrate levels due to die-off happening overnight? I understand that it might just be a little, but its doing this every night, I've always had zero nitrates, but moderately high phosphates.

I actually changed my 'skimmer schedule' to 10am-1pm (on), 1-5pm (off), 5pm-12am (on) and the rest off. I added another gap in there due to my skimmer being a microbubble machine.

Any input is appreciated. If people start thinking this could be the problem behind my phosphate issues, I'll add a heater into the skimmer to maintain that water.

Thanks :hail:

Edit:

Before everyone starts asking me about my husbandry and feeding details which could point to my phos levels being so high, I feed less than 10 tiny pellets of fish food to my single clown a day, none of it goes to waste, I make sure each pellet is eaten before putting in more, whether it be the clown or my nass snails or this giant amphipod that lives in my rock. I do a 20% water change every week with IO salt and RODI water from either SWC/BR where I vacuum the hell out of the bottom (which is bare). And I run a small bag of phos remover.

I just added a small powerfilter to act as a fuge and will be stocking some chaeto very soon.

 

[NC2WA]

so have you recorded the temperature with the skimmer on during the night? I would think the return pump and proper amount of heaters should control/take care of the lack of heat issue.

First, I would advise against not running your skimmer 24x7 as you will not maintain optimal water quality.

Second, I find it hard to believe that a not running a skimmer at night could cause a tank to dip to mid-60 degree (sure i will agree a pump with skimmer may add a couple degrees to tank, but not the magnitude you are suggesting).

Which leads me to the next question: What heaters are you using? What happens if you add another heater for night only??

 

[Cwazy Clown]

oh sorry, i forgot to specify....

I have an aquac HOB skimmer that has its own body of water as soon as the skimmer pump gets shut off. the heater I aws refering to would sit inside the aquac remora heating that body of water. the drop in temperature would be the water thats inside the remora when the pump gets shut off because my heater is in my display.

 

[Krish]

I use to stuff the input chamber of my aqua c nano with filter floss on the top of the input pipe and it quieted it down alot! Might want to gve that a try. It doesn't really get wet as sits on top of the intake pipe.

 

[Cwazy Clown]

I've done that before, but its not that part which I think is noisy, its just the bubble coming up to the top.. I'm a fairly light sleeper and it would be annoying trying to get use to listening to that while falling asleep... its literally less than a foot away from my head...

 

[NC2WA]

so can you get a small heater to fit inside the body of water of the skimmer?

personally, i think the issue of cold water is not as important as not running the skimmer 24x7..you are just asking for algae to grow in the tank..IMHO...

 

[Cwazy Clown]

yup...

but then... some people go skimmerless and it works for them.

oh and also... my tank is 8g.

 

[NC2WA]

knowing the size of the tank in this case does help

with that piece of info, I would not bother with a skimmer at all. solves two problems: no holding water in the tank that is in the mid 60s AND you are able to sleep

just make sure you are on top of your water changes and have plenty of water movement (that is, surface agitation)

 

[Cwazy Clown]

yup, my tank isnt huge, or else it probably wouldn't be beside my head.

I've had a lot of people telling me that I don't need a skimmer, and I definitely believe that everything would be okay without one, but I'm also running an only sps tank... so even if I have the skimmer on for maybe 35% of the day, I'm still skimming out some stuff.

But if I did take it out, I'd prolly upgrade my little aquaclear fuge, and my flow should be enough. I've got a knano for only surface agitation, but also a k1 moving the main water column.

But as for now, I plan on keeping my skimmer but only running it on/off, I should probably get a small heater and stick it in there huh?

 

[NC2WA]

probably get a small heater and stick it in there huh

If you plan on keeping the skimmer, I would, as I dont see any other option.