turning return pump off at night

Question
QUESTION: Hello,
I have a 150G reef tank with 5 small fish and a lot of coral, thus a pretty low bio load.  my sump is 75G and located a floor below the main tank.  I don't turn off the return pump except for water changes. My question is that is it okay for me to turn off the return pump at night when I have a someone in the bedroom next to the sump room.  I would like to put it on a timer to turn off at 10pm and on at like 6am.  I have circulation pumps in the main tank.  bottom line is how long can I have the return pump off per day? also, is it okay to turn off my protein skimmer at night?  thanks.

ANSWER: Hello Vu,

You can turn the skimmer off at night or for how ever you want.  This will only affect the skimmeing.

AS for the circulation pump, think it might be ok to do this, but I would put some type of circulation in the sump/refugium also.

Also, will you have any problems with heating or cooling if your heaters are in the sump?  Or will you locate the heaters into the display tank during this time?


Good luck, and let us know how this works out for you.

Mr. Bill



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks so much.  I will set it on a timer to turn main pump off at 9pm and back on at 3 am. sleeping, can't hear pump anyway.  I did it for one night and my temp went down to 77 degrees from 80 so is that ok?  I will put circulation pump in refugium. Will algae be a problem?

Answer
Hey Vu,

I would put another heater in the main display tank just to make sure it does not drop anymore then it needs too.

75-76 isnt death, but it isnt good either.  You want to minimize the amount of swing, the difference, to be minimal.

I would expect all kinds of thinigs when you make a change like this, and algae will be one of them.  You will need to re-establish maintenance schedule/plan and make sure things are still great with the new pump schedule.

Thanks for asking,