You can run for days if you would like. There is no set limit. If you are in a real rich area, look in the inspection teardrop holes on the side. If gold is getting down far enough to see, it will be a real fun clean-up. If you plan to get back to work, only clean off the first separator tray, over 90% of your gold is going to be there. When it is clean, put it on the bottom of the stack and move the others up. This way you will have the second tray on the top with some gold in it, all the way down to the last freshly cleaned out hungry tray at the bottom. The material that you just cleaned out of the first tray can be quickly panned and snuffer-ed. The remaining black sands can be dumped back into the Cube when it is started back up. So now all you have is gold in a bottle and no concentrates yet. Do that as often as you would like, the more you use the Cube the more you realize, it don't like to get rid of gold. Just keep running. Cube-it or Lose-it Mike