Filters and skimmers ss

can i turn off my filters and skimmer at night and leave the power heads runnning

 

The oceans don't shut off at night. Its best to leave things running, if water is not circulating through a piece of equipment it is becoming stagnant and losing its dissolved ozygen which can cause problems.

 

yeah you can do that, alota people dont even have filters,sumps, or anything, that have alot flow and alota live rock, its not going to hurt if you turn off everything at night except the power heads.

 

no you don't want to turn everything off at night cause waste is still produced and you will have spikes in your level's you want it running all the time to keep the best possible conditions for the fish and all your corals in your tank.

 

if you turn off the filters at night then all of the bacteria that is used to having a constant suply of oxygen will die off and become anerobic rather than areobic. meaning that when you turn on the pumps in the morning the build up of anerobic conditions waste such as methylsuphide, acids and a buch of other bad things will be happily introduced into the aquarium and cause the inhabitants much grief. so if you wish to kill everything with this method then go for it otherwise id seriously do some research and thinking about what your doing. if its power you are worried about then look at more effecient equipment or a smaller simpler set up. sure some people dont have sumps or skimmers and work completly on live rock filtration with circulation but that is because the tank is set up like that. if you have a sump/filter and simply turn it off then you may aswell have never had it. also those without sumps/filters tend to do more water changes and have a very light bio load

 

K+ big time i so agree on that one Sco-tie

 

hmmmmm,, i turned off my skimmer,HOB filter at night for a few months now.........and HEY guess what, nothing bad has happened. i only run my HOB filter a few weeks every couple months to run carbon, and i run my skimmer once a week.

 

So your saying that your system doesn't rely on the bacteria in your hob at all, that you just use it to run carbon. Then you assume that the OP's system is the same with out even asking and tell him to do the same?? Not good advice.

 

agreed pgood everyones system is different. K+ for you sir

 

I'm wondering why you would want to turn these pieces of equipment off at night in the first place? The only thing I can think of is that this tank is in your bedroom and the noise keeps you awake?