letting filteration run 24 hours

[seaweedsmoker]

Googmorning!

I was wonder I have a 90 gallon setup with about 60 lbs of live rock 4" corral base 6 fish -zoos - shrooms -trees no hard corals.

Ive got hooked up now to the tank:
1 Eheim pro 2 wet/dry filter
1 Berlin skimmer
2 power heads 403s pushing different directions

All my levels are fine.

I was wondering is it good to run the fliter and skimmer all the time or should i have them come on at different times?

Im wondering just because ive been reading alot of other threads about the soft corals getting vitimins and stuff and i was thinking if i have my equipment running all the time the might not be getting all that they should when i feed the phytoplankton to them.

Whats your thoughts people?

Thanks!

 

[Paul B]

Whatever filtration you have should be run continousely. If you are using a wet dry and it dries out in between uses, it will be useless. If you have a canister filter on there, I would remove it. That will remove any food for the corals and anything it collects will still be in the water only instead of benefiting anything in the tank it will just rot in the filter. You could run it and clean it every few days if you like. The skimmer should also run all the time.
Paul

 

[Krish]

I agree with Paul and I also wanted to add that, you may want to look at some of the disadvantages of having a wet/dry as opposed to a sump or refugium. Wet/dry's are great at what they do (converting ammonia to nitrite and then nitrite to nitrate) in a short amount of time, but has no way of performing denitrification which means a wet/dry, if not taken care of properly, acts as a nitrate factory which can cause problems like nuicance algae, bad for corals etc. More people these days are relying on their LR, skimmers and/or macro algae in a refugium to deal with all these processes. Wet/dry's are great for fish only systems as fish can tolerate higher levels of nitrate, but corals on the otherhand, don't. Not saying you should definately change it or anything, but I'd look into the pros and cons of a wet/dry and get some more feedback. I had terrible luck when I ran a wet/dry and now without one, my tank has never been better! Best of luck

 

[seaweedsmoker]

Thanks for the input its helped

 

[liveforphysics]

Yep, I agree with these above guys.

Haveing a filter that flicks on and off on a timer or something would result in lots of rotting and dying bacteria.

Now, I think your question really has to do with a concern about over filtering?

Rather than having the filter shut off or on, simple running a much smaller pump, or putting a valve to restrict flow would acheive the results you are looking for.

Now, my personal advise would be to pull out the bioballs or whatever medium your wet/dry uses, and stick some LR rubble in there along with some chaeto and a couple good lightbulbs. Thats all it takes to have a fuge on your tank, and it will naturally provide food for your corals and critters while the cheato makes an exellent nutrient export.