Only Skimming at Night

[moumda]

If I was going to run a skimmer only 1/2 day it would be at night to keep oxygen levels up. That being said my skimmers don't produce much skimmate at night so you'll probably have some buildup of organics during the day. JMO.

 

[JmLee]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6543804#post6543804 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by michaeldaly
I would not reccomend it, 130W is not that much, but it does seem a lot for a skimmer, what skimmer do you have.
Switching a skimmer on and off it cant perfore to it full capabilites because each time itv takes a while to get going

i highly disagree. As matter of fact there are alot of experienced aquarist that only skim at certain time of the day ( usually night ). i think if it helps your bill out. Go for it.

 

[obaltus]

Thank you, I've been only skimming at night since I started this thread and I haven't seen any degradation in the tank parameters except that I am a bit richer

 

[MCsaxmaster]

Well there ya go :thumbsup:

 

[superedge88]

I am a huge penny pincher when it comes to trying to keep the electrical consumption to a minimum. Have you changed all bulbs in your house over to fluorescent? I haven't used an incandescent bulb in over two years now. Any fluorescent light strips I have converted to T8. I leave shades open as much as possible in order to keep from turning a light on when there is perfectly good natural light availabe through a window. Maybe these are all things you have thought of. If not, you can easily save a lot of watts by doing some of the above. I hope that you have found a good solution.

 

[Serioussnaps]

The amount of money you save will be miniscule in comparison to the performance of skimming in your system. Why save a little bit of money for a possibly huge change in your equilibrium. Do a cost benefit analysis and if power really costs that much then you make a decision. Likely the benfits you get from skimming 24 hrs will far outweigh the possible cycle of problem solving youmight undergo because you needed to save a little money.