P skimmer during cycling process

[8965]

i just started my cyycling process and have my temp and salt levels all correct. i have put a raw schrimp in the tank today and will be putting lr in the tank in 3 days. should i be running my protein skimmer during this process? tia

 

[mr_tee0419]

You can leave your skimmer off. Reason being is that during the cycling process, the first goal is to achieve an extremely high ammonia level (produced by wastes and decay). The skimmer would extract this from the water, slowing the process down. I would leave it off at least until your amonia peak comes down. HTH

 

[loganj]

I would also leave the skimmer off until the tank has cycled. There won't be much in there for it to remove for a while anyway. Once your nitrite levels have dropped to 0, I would do a water change and start the skimmer up. By the time it completes it's break in period, there should be some DOC's in the water for it to remove.