how long can a skimmer be off

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evil Nick

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So Im leaving for a vaca in a week and I Use an aquatic life 115 skimmer. It has a very small collection cup. Im emptying it at least once a day. I cant ask people to come by once a day to empty it for me so Im thinking one of 3 things.

Either

a) Im going to drill a hole in the collection cup and make a drain to larger container. Which would be nice all around, Be it the cup wont crack.

b) Reconnect a very ghetto piece of pipe I Used while the skimmer was breaking in. This works but I do believe it makes it a bit less efficient.

c) My buddy says "ah just turn it off for the week, youll be fine"

Im wary on C because the tank was just freshly cycled not to long ago. I did JUST install an HOB refugium (with a TINY piece of cheato moss) and the tank (29gal) has about 55 lbs of live rock so who knows maybe it will be good.

What do you guys think? Im honestly leaning towards drilling a hard drain into the collection so I wont have to empty it so often.
 
You can easily leave it off for the week. I just left for a week and didn't worry about my skimmer at all. I just did large water change upon returning from the trip. As long as you are exporting the nutrients you're all good.
 
It really depends on how many fish you have and how often they are going to be fed, you could even just adjust your skimmer to a dry skin, or just do a good water change before you go and when you come back,

some systems don't need skimmers so it may be that you could turn it off as long as you like,
all goes back really to how many fish you have.[emoji846]
 
thanks guys,
there are 2 VERY SMALL juvie clowns and one juvie yellow tang, one VERY SMALL yellow clown goby and a fire goby. Nothing crazy huge (some inverts to).

Maybe I will just leave it off. Id still like to run a drain eventually tho cause Im lazy and know one day Im going to remove the cup and it wont go back on nice due to wear lol.
 
every once and a while come across skimmer cups with drains for many makes and models of skimmers there not cheap but if you think about it they'll pay for themselves in time. so keep your eyes open there out there.

I can run my skimmer a week with out cleaning it , you just need to adjust the height of the cup and air flow intake , your wanting a drier skim-mate rather than overly wet but it can be done.

these 2 questions are asked with out judgment just observation
2 things caught my eye I just got to ask ,

55lbs of rock in a 29g tank where do the fish find room to swim?

How far down the road do you have planned for a tank upgrade ? I just saw the word tang and had to ask. 29g + tang = tank upgrade in the very near future.

I have a juvi yellow tang had him almost 4 months he went from the size of a quarter to about 3/4 of the size of my hand in just 4 months time , just want you to be prepared they do grow fast so you have a future game plan lined up.
 
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every once and a while come across skimmer cups with drains for many makes and models of skimmers there not cheap but if you think about it they'll pay for themselves in time. so keep your eyes open there out there.

I can run my skimmer a week with out cleaning it , you just need to adjust the height of the cup and air flow intake , your wanting a drier skim-mate rather than overly wet but it can be done.

these 2 questions are asked with out judgment just observation
2 things caught my eye I just got to ask ,

55lbs of rock in a 29g tank where do the fish find room to swim?

How far down the road do you have planned for a tank upgrade ? I just saw the word tang and had to ask. 29g + tang = tank upgrade in the very near future.

I have a juvi yellow tang had him almost 4 months he went from the size of a quarter to about 3/4 of the size of my hand in just 4 months time , just want you to be prepared they do grow fast so you have a future game plan lined up.

There is actually a LOT of openings in the rocks. Theres a lot of swim space. I do realize the fish will get larger but that will be the point I Hand it off to someone and start again. I recently upgraded this 29 (when it was my fresh) to a 55 tank and honestly I kind of regret it. Its nice but honestly a lot.
Right now though the clowns just sort of float around and goof off and the tang goes in and out of the rocks like crazy.

I wanted to stick with just smaller fish all together but this guy was on sale for super cheap so I figured if I had to trade him off down the line it wasnt a huge loss.

Also my skimmer only seems to make a wet skim. Its very dark but super wet.
 
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