curious about maintaining your tank

[TMDragon]

Yep I agree with all of the above posts. The filters need to be on 24/7 with the exception of turning them off for maintenance during water changes if needed.

I also don't understand your reasoning for turning them off. Is it to save electricity? As stated above, it hardly makes a difference, especially with HOBs (I'm assuming) and only 2 tanks. When you start running 10+ tanks or tanks in the 100+ gallon range that require large pumps, multiple filters and heavy lighting, things change though. :grinyes:

 

[LeahK]

Yeah, from what I understand, the problem with turning the filter off is less of an immediate problem for the fish and more of a problem for the good bacteria. From what others have told me, flowing water will support a healthy bacteria colony, but the bacteria numbers decrease in still water.

Edit: Maybe I should add, this question came up for me back when I was trying to seed some filter media with good bacteria to set up a QT tank. I thought I could just lay the new media in my established tank and let it sit there for a few weeks. But the overwhelming majority of folks here on AC told me I needed to run the whole QT filter on the established tank to seed it, because the flowing water would support a larger bacteria colony.

 

[Rbishop]

The water in the filter box isn't any more oxygenated than the water in the tank.

In any case, run your filter 24/7.

 

[DominionDesign]

24/7 for all of the above reasons. In addition most every pump or filter made for aquarium use is engineered to run continuously, constant turning on and off will shorten the life of them and end up costing more in the long run.

 

[jm1212]

i always ran the filter 24/7...

 

[lovemybarbs]

24/7

I've never heard of anyone turning it off.

 

[Draal5]

even in the dark age filters were 24x7 I have never heard of turning off filters except for swimming pools.

some people turn their filters when feeding but that's 15mins max 1 hr

 

[Hooked Newbie]

24/7 on all tanks except during maintenance.

 

[Alan R]

I have never heard of anyone not running a filter 24/7.

 

[Slappy*McFish]

I would never turn off my filters. I don't even turn off my HOBs when I'm cleaning them. I just remove the media baskets/cartridges. Canister filters have to be turned off to clean them, though...lol.
There is no benefit in running them part time. You're much more likely to run into problems by turning them off.
I have heard of others who follow your routine, but by far the majority of people run filters 24/7.