Am I SOL???

Hey so about a month ago I took the plunge and finally bough a 55 gallon sw tank, it came with a stand bout 60 lbs crushed coral a heater 2 hob filters and 2x 36" floresent lights, my questions, I'm going to be gettin bout 65 lbs of live rock and I do want to start a reef however while doing more research I realized how small my stand is and I know I should get a skimmer however the inside of my stand where I figured I'd put the sump is only 23" long and 19" high I know a 10 gal would fit in there but is there a decent skimmer that would fit? Keep. In mind I'm a broke 20 year old :-D

 

Im pretty certain you will find a skimmer that will fit in that system
Aquamedic for example make a Skimmer called "Stumpy" and it was designed for exactly the situation you find yourself in

Steve

 

coralife superskimmer 65 will fit under there. I had one and it worked well under a very short stand. they are decent cheap skimmers and can be tweaked to make them more efficient.

you can also build yourself a taller stand... for a 55, it would not be too expensive if you already have the tools and are handy.

 

You could also do a HOB skimmer. There have been a couple released this last year that are very good.

 

sadly enough i belive my stand is a little shorter haha the specs of the coralife say 6" X 8" X 20.5" thats about and inch 1/2 more than i have to work with
with regards to building a stand, i am very handy however i have no access to tools... if only this was 3 years ago and i was still in wood shop haha

 

HMmm maybe my google skillz are evading me today but for some reason i cant find "stumpy" lol :

 

any ones your would recomend in particular... although i really dont like the look of stuff hangin off the back tryin to keep it to a minimal :-/

 

Aqua Medic Turboflotor Blue 1000 Protein Skimmer [PS-AM71005] - $284.35 : Aquarium Supplies, For all your aquarium and fish tank needs

apologies - its a stumpy design called Turbo Flotor and its only 18 inches tall
so it might be tight, but it may work out

BUBBLE-MAGUS - Aquarium Internal skimmer|external skimmer|Dosing pump|Calcium reactor|Nitrate reductor/NO3 reductor|Filters|Turtle shell lampshade|Water monitor and controller|Additives|moonlight LED

Also check out Bubble Magus - they have a cone thats maybe suitable for your tank at just over 17 inches

SWC Skimmers

sponsors here SWC - have a cone at 18 inches tall

1 inch of space should be enough for cap removal IME as most external or sump skimmers I have had overlap by a few MM only

hope one of these helps

Steve

 

wow thank you very much all three of those would fit great underneath my tank now i just have to figure out which one to get lol any one have good bad experiences with any of these thanks again for all the help guys

 

Welcome

cones are the flavour of the day at present - so if it where me
I would look at the Bubble Magus or the SWC models - simply as I have not yet tried a cone, but I know from people who have, they are very impressed with their performance

but Aqua medic have a solid rep in terms of equipment ( I have used a couple of different aquamedic skimmers and been happy with them)

Steve