it wont hurt anything to unhook your battery. they may stay up just fine hooked up. but if they do happen to get discharged its hard on the batterys to be fully discharged. so its up to you. will probably be fine to leave them hooked up unless you have a excessive drain or forget to turn something off but if you unhook them you know your be fine. only need to unhook the main neg cable you can leave all the rest hooked up