Bit off more than I can chew...help!!!

I am a bit over my head and need some advice. I have had several saltwater aquariums over the years and absolutely love the hobby. This past year, as I moved into my new house, I thought this was as good time as any to start building the reef tank I have always wanted….lets just say I jumped in with both feet before I was probably ready to. I have my 180 gallon tank (w/o overflow) that I brought from my old house. I made 2 overflow siphons using pvc and have them draining down into the basement where the water then collects into a 50 gal Rubbermaid feeding trough. The 50 gal trough has 2 overflow pvc drains. 1 leads to a old 75 gallon tank that I converted into a refugium…..once through the refugium, the water is pumped back into the 50 gal Rubbermaid trough. The 2nd drain takes the water directly below to a 100 gal Rubbermaid trough where I am wanting to put a protein skimmer. The water is then pumped back up to the tank via 2 little giant pumps. So I am guessing that I have roughly 400 gallons of water running through this system. My question is what would be a good protein skimmer without breaking the bank anymore than I have already? My friend keeps trying to get me to by a C-Skim 1200 but I just don’t think it is big enough but I don’t know. Currently my tank has my old hydro performer 400 from my last tank but clearly that doesn’t cut it. Would using both my Hydro performer and the C-Skim work….or am I better to just buy and run a single bigger skimmer? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

I would use one large skimmer verse two smaller skimmer. Your going to be spending a lot to fit that size tank and additional water. An ASM G4X is good up to 450 gallons and ASM makes pretty good skimmers. Precision Marine also makes good skimmers. If you want to keep a lot of sps, i would recommend getting an even higher rated skimmer as sps require cleaner tank water.

 

Protein Skimmers, Calcium Reactors, Turnkey Aquarium Systems, Media Reactors, Sumps and Systems by Euro-Reef

 

thanks for the advice!!