Advice on a Skimmer

[JRoyals]

Hello All,

I have had my reef tank for about 5 years, First it was in a 24g bio cube, Upgraded to a 36g Bowfront (Broke during a move...) then up to a 40g. Now I have finally gotten a tank I really like set up. (Found a REALLY awesome 90g for $40) And everything seems to be happy so far.

This tank was drilled; however, The holes were in REALLY odd places, and I do not currently have a sump set up, but I had picked up a pair of really nice SeaChem Tidal 110 HOBs (These filters have lots of room for Media, unlike most HOB) So I have set the tank up running two of them for filtration.

Now to the root of the issue. I have never ran a Skimmer on any of my Tank Setups, Mostly due to a combo of tank size and expense. Now I feel like I need to add a Skimmer with my current size, especially since I have picked up a few new corals. I was wondering if anyone had any luck at all with HOB skimmers? Are they worth it? Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[JRoyals]

 

[andrewey]

If you're going with HOB, my two favorites have been the aquamax 1.5 and the reef octopus 100/1000 (unfortunately I don't have experience with the larger RO BH 2000, and the aquamax 1.5 is likely undersized for a 90). Those have proven to be reliable and pull out great skimmate. As far as larger HOB are concerned, it might be worth looking into setting up the sump because at a certain size of tank, in sump or external skimmers dominate for obvious reasons.

 

[JRoyals]

I will eventually use an overflow to drop to a Sump, once I finish building it with the 20G Tank I have, lol. But for right now, I think I am gonna have to go with a HOB Skimmer. It is good to hear that there are some that are good.

 

[Ef4life]

I have an old aquamaxx hob, it works ok. I actually have it in my sump vs hanging on the back of my tank. It’s been a good skimmer for about 6 years now.