Skimmer for intermittent use
 

I am considering using a skimmer for short periods a couple times a day after feeding to skim off the extra food. I have read that most skimmers have poor pumps that have problems restarting after they are shut off. Are there any skimmer pumps that would be reliable running twice per day for only 30 minutes or so?

Sorry i dont have any recommendations but What is your reason for not skimming continuously?

Cheap skimmers have cheap parts. The csc skimmers run sicce pumps which is a quality pump.

And in my case most skimming is done when I'm not looking which is only periodical. Lol

I'm not interested in stripping most of the Zooplankton and other life from the water column. I also have concerns that selectively skimming off only certain types of bacteria in the tank may cause problems in the long term.

Thanks, I will check into them. Maybe I will contact Sicce to see if their pumps would hold up to being turned off and on multiple times a day.

Go old school with a simple wooden air stone job & run it 24/7. A small powerhead to circulate the water & an air pump to produce bubbles. Very 'gentle' way to skim since there's no venturi or needle wheel chopping the water to produce bubbles. I've been running one for years on my system, it's cheap & works fine.

Not sure I've ever heard about skimmers stripping zooplankton or other life? I think generally all they do is remove proteins which is 'dead' material (detritus etc.) & even the most efficient ones only get about 40%, but I could be mistaken.

There does seem to be evidence suggesting skimmers remove planktonic microbes from the water column. It is well accepted that they remove bacteria, albeit selectively. I just assumed, possibly incorrectly, that if skimmers remove food particles and detritus they would also remove a variety small microorganisms. Perhaps most Zooplankton are too large or aren't regularly removed via the overflow. I also wonder how harmful multiple passes through a skimmer is on copepods for example. I am going to try to maximize my pod population for a future Mandarin as well as for my coral.

I do currently have a skimmer, I'm simply not using it. The design you mentioned does seem quite gentle which is what I would prefer so I will try to find some information on it.

A skimmer will need to run for longer than 30min to do anything. You could skim during daylight hours only which I use to do without issue but it was due to my skimmer being too large for the tank. Zoo-plankton is most active at night you'll minimize the amount removed by the skimmer.

Tunze also makes plankton friendly skimmers

Well I guess I stand corrected. After a bit of research it does seem that some beneficials are removed by skimming, particularly by the more efficient skimmers available these days. However, depending on your system & what you keep, a certain amount of skimming is probably better than none at all. Having done the bit of research, I'm reassured that my counter current air stone driven model is a good choice for my system. I have no sump and have successfully kept a Mandarin in there for 5 years plus. I've never supplemented the tank with plankton or other additives & he doesn't appear to be starving! I must admit that he will take pellet food when it happens to come to rest on the substrate, which is not that often. Once in a while I try to target feed him with the pellets, but that's very rare occasion these days.