Skimmer on a timer or 24x7

[DarkHorseMBA]

Got my first fish for the new tank, a clown and a royal gramma. Gabe @ Gabe's was very helpful. The fish seem to doing fine, the gramma is hiding for now.

With the addition of fish I cranked up the skimmer, seems to be working well, but I'm not crazy about the noise. Can I run the skimmer on a timer, say only at night? Or does it have to run 24x7 to be effective?

DarkHorseMBA
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[tebstan]

Personal preference, when it comes to deciding how efficient it is. I turned off my skimmer at night, then eventually stopped using it all. I didn't like the noise, and it was pulling out food I was trying to keep in the water column for some NPS. Now that I've set up some bio pellets, I'm back to using a skimmer, and the sound is irritating.

If you have it go on and off with a timer, watch how well it regulates back to the level you have set. If the bubble column isn't getting back to the right height, you could end up wet skimming or not skimming much at all.

[Europhyllia]

My skimmer is on 24/7. What goes off at times is the return pump when I feed phyto etc. that I want to stay in the tank.
I have a beast of a skimmer on the main tank and it's actually more quiet than the little skimmer I have on the seahorse tank so noise can a also vary by design.

[ErikH]

Is the noise stemming from vibration? You can tell if you lift the skimmer up slightly. You could superglue some "FUN FOAM" from Hobby Lobby to the bottom of the pump.

[DarkHorseMBA]

Is the noise stemming from vibration? You can tell if you lift the skimmer up slightly. You could superglue some "FUN FOAM" from Hobby Lobby to the bottom of the pump.

I think cutting down vibration would help. I'll need to work out the pump placment, maybe a longer airline hose.
Thanks for the tip.

[neogenix]

Yup, unless you've got a majorly over-rated skimmer for your tank, you should probably try run it more towards 24x7... If you had something rated significantly higher than you need for your tank, I wouldn't see why you wouldn't be able to switch it off for a few hours. You could also add noise dampening materials to the stand, and make sure that the skimmer is completely free of debris and what have you... I found that every now and again when mine gets noisy there're a few bits of macro that've snuck into the inlet for the pump.

[kkiel02]

I lean towards the 24 hour rule also as I think one time my anemones spawned and the skimmer went crazy pulling out stuff. Its another failsafe.