Advice on filter and skimmer

[djcoin]

Hi I have had a 55 gal fish onluy for over 2 years. Running pretty well. I want to upgrade but I want to get good filtration first. Can someone please recommend a good filter, ptotien skimmer and sterilizer for a 150 gal tank. My skimmer sucks(seaclone). I am just tired of having equipment that just about does the job and I want to get a bit more serious. I figured the people on this board could give me a good list of equipment and save me a lot of time and trouble. Thanks for any help.

Sincerely

Djcoin

[Bughead]

Seems like in the past 3 years of this saltwater hobby I've had more than my share of "been there, done that". I started out with a wet/dry built-in bioball system. DON'T GO THERE! My currant system in both tanks is the Total K.I.S.S.

Both tanks have a 4"-6" sand bed and live rock--200lbs. in the 180 gal FOWLR and 70 lbs in the 55 gal. (pre)reef. Both tanks are skimmerless, although I was using a Prizm in the small tank until a couple of months ago. It's a dandy little skimmer and I would recomend it as an inexpensive alternative to the very good and very expensive models. Both tanks have Mag Drive pumps and single overflows and a 50 micron filter fiber. I use carbon intermittantly. I have caulerpa in the sump of the small tank. The nitrates hover between 3 and 5 ppm - I know that's a little higher for a reef than the target of 0. The big tank has a big bioload and no caulerpa in the sump, but the nitrates haven't gone above 10ppm.

I love this system for its total simplicity and total lack of stuff and gadgetry. This is just one of many good ways to go. I'm sure you'll get a lot of different and very good advice here.

[Reefland]

To give you one recommendation would bebad on my part since there are so many good products available to us today. I'll give you a couple of recommendations and let you research them further:

For the Skimmer, look at:
MyReef (www.myreefcreations.com)
AquaC EV Series (www.proteinskimmer.com)
Aqua-Medic Turboflotor (http://www.aqua-medic.de/cgi-bin/php...t_id=9&lang=en)

As far as the "filter", the trend is using a sump that is partitioned with an area to hold additionally LR and LS and even some greenery for additional nutrient export.

Good Luck,
Scott Z.