Is it wise to cut protein skimmer?

[ajremington68]

Hey, my tank is be very new about 3 and half months. Everything is coming around nicely and opening up. No visible growth on anything besides Xenia, which no duh toilet coral. My question is my nitrates sit super low around 1-5 and phosphate goes up to 0.25 and I have to dose phosphate e every once in a while to lower it. I have a curve 5 bubble magnus running wet skim, but filling cup every week, week and half. Would it be wise to turn off the protein skimmer for 2/7 days of the week to get nitrates to go up or not worry about it. I know I would run the risk of algae or bacteria bloom, and everything is doing relatively good besides no growth. I feed reef nutrition pellets twice a day with mysis and rods frozen as well. Once a week I will cut flow and spot feed reef roids as well. Question is what would you do, just wait and let the tank takes it course or try and raise nitrates, is so how?

Thanks and happy reefing to you all!!!!

 

[tbrown]

Hey, my tank is be very new about 3 and half months. Everything is coming around nicely and opening up. No visible growth on anything besides Xenia, which no duh toilet coral. My question is my nitrates sit super low around 1-5 and phosphate goes up to 0.25 and I have to dose phosphate e every once in a while to lower it. I have a curve 5 bubble magnus running wet skim, but filling cup every week, week and half. Would it be wise to turn off the protein skimmer for 2/7 days of the week to get nitrates to go up or not worry about it. I know I would run the risk of algae or bacteria bloom, and everything is doing relatively good besides no growth. I feed reef nutrition pellets twice a day with mysis and rods frozen as well. Once a week I will cut flow and spot feed reef roids as well. Question is what would you do, just wait and let the tank takes it course or try and raise nitrates, is so how?

Thanks and happy reefing to you all!!!!

I run my skimmer on a timer. It runs 4 times daily for 1.5 hours.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hey, my tank is be very new about 3 and half months. Everything is coming around nicely and opening up. No visible growth on anything besides Xenia, which no duh toilet coral. My question is my nitrates sit super low around 1-5 and phosphate goes up to 0.25 and I have to dose phosphate e every once in a while to lower it. I have a curve 5 bubble magnus running wet skim, but filling cup every week, week and half. Would it be wise to turn off the protein skimmer for 2/7 days of the week to get nitrates to go up or not worry about it. I know I would run the risk of algae or bacteria bloom, and everything is doing relatively good besides no growth. I feed reef nutrition pellets twice a day with mysis and rods frozen as well. Once a week I will cut flow and spot feed reef roids as well. Question is what would you do, just wait and let the tank takes it course or try and raise nitrates, is so how?

Thanks and happy reefing to you all!!!!

run at 12 hours or on a timer for 6-8 hours

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Hey, my tank is be very new about 3 and half months. Everything is coming around nicely and opening up. No visible growth on anything besides Xenia, which no duh toilet coral. My question is my nitrates sit super low around 1-5 and phosphate goes up to 0.25 and I have to dose phosphate e every once in a while to lower it. I have a curve 5 bubble magnus running wet skim, but filling cup every week, week and half. Would it be wise to turn off the protein skimmer for 2/7 days of the week to get nitrates to go up or not worry about it. I know I would run the risk of algae or bacteria bloom, and everything is doing relatively good besides no growth. I feed reef nutrition pellets twice a day with mysis and rods frozen as well. Once a week I will cut flow and spot feed reef roids as well. Question is what would you do, just wait and let the tank takes it course or try and raise nitrates, is so how?

Thanks and happy reefing to you all!!!!

Just remove the skimmer cup

 

[dstockwell]

WOW, I just run mine 24/7/365 yet I don't have a high bioload.

 

[tbrown]

WOW, I just run mine 24/7/365 yet I don't have a high bioload.

Some people tanks benefit from a skimmer, some don't. If yours is running good with the skimmer on full-time, great. I'm trying not to overskim which plenty of people do. I could easily turn mine on fu time with my bioload but everything is doing good so I don't mess with it.

 

[ajremington68]

Some people tanks benefit from a skimmer, some don't. If yours is running good with the skimmer on full-time, great. I'm trying not to overskim which plenty of people do. I could easily turn mine on fu time with my bioload but everything is doing good so I don't mess with it.

By overskim what do you mean? Like pulling all your nitrates and phosphates out?

 

[tbrown]

By overskim what do you mean? Like pulling all your nitrates and phosphates out?

Yes.

 

[arcangelreef]

I have struggled with low nutrients in my tank since day 1.. I haven’t ran my skimmer for a few months now and it has become much more stable. I still have to dose phos and nitrate believe it or not but much less and definitely not daily anymore.
My corals have never been better. It’s a crazy epiphany but I’ve come to realize, I’ve basically been starving my coral till this point.
I’ve been shooting to keep my nitrates at 10-20 and phos around 0.1.
Previously to this I struggled just to get nitrate above 5 and phos over .03. Dosing copious amounts of phos and nitrate. If I missed dosing it would 0 out in not time. It was just being sucked out by the skimmer.

My tank is 180g total volume. YMMV

 

[ajremington68]

I have struggled with low nutrients in my tank since day 1.. I haven’t ran my skimmer for a few months now and it has become much more stable. I still have to dose phos and nitrate believe it or not but much less and definitely not daily anymore.
My corals have never been better. It’s a crazy epiphany but I’ve come to realize, I’ve basically been starving my coral till this point.
I’ve been shooting to keep my nitrates at 10-20 and phos around 0.1.
Previously to this I struggled just to get nitrate above 5 and phos over .03. Dosing copious amounts of phos and nitrate. If I missed dosing it would 0 out in not time. It was just being sucked out by the skimmer.

My tank is 180g total volume. YMMV

What is your stocking list in your tank? And what kind of filtration do you have? Carbon reactor or no?

 

[arcangelreef]

I have 11 fish, 3 tangs 2 wrasses rest are small fish. Chromis, clowns anthias. I stopped using any mechanical filtration long time ago. I run carbon in a bag once in awhile when I notice water starting to yellow.
And I have a bunch of biological filter media in the sump.. maybe 5 pounds. This may also be sucking out some of the nitrates.

 

[ajremington68]

I have 11 fish, 3 tangs 2 wrasses rest are small fish. Chromis, clowns anthias. I stopped using any mechanical filtration long time ago. I run carbon in a bag once in awhile when I notice water starting to yellow.
And I have a bunch of biological filter media in the sump.. maybe 5 pounds. This may also be sucking out some of the nitrates.

I have 300 bio balls and I bought a bag of 5lbs of ceramic rings on Amazon, could it be to much media for a 55 gallon should I take out some. I also run a filter sock.