what is the best skimmer?

Well it matters not to me as you can't see or smell it from where I live and I'm no preacher And again its not my money either. But you have read some half baked theory about what we used to call a natural system that morphed into what some call a deep sand bed or plenum system .. By other smart guys writing on their half baked ideas ..

Do your self and system a favor and get a skimmer you are going to have more algae and animal health issues then a few..
Not to mention nasty looking water. With what you are keeping now its not so bad But if you ever want to expand the bio load and move up to a bit more challenging coral type then a skimmer is a must for you.
Also might want to consider carbon if not using it already. You are setting your self up for an expensive lesson and the place you read this idea offers no warranty I bet you..

 

as far as selecting skimmers i have been through 4 and i just started in august of 06. i started with the coral life super skimmer (65 gallon model) and since it was my first i didn't really know if the skimmer was doing all that it could so i set out to find a skimmer that made me happy, so i purchased a crappy finnex skimmer (stay away from those) then i tried the red sea berlin turbo it worked alright until i figured out that the flow from my overflow was to close to the pump and was keeping the skimmer from really skimming anything i put a filter sock on the end of the overflow down pipe and the skimmer starting working very well. of course i didn't stop there and purchased a asm g1-x, and i removed the filter sock. hands down this skimmer rocks it pulls out such dark skimmate and it is very consistent and reliable. i like the coral life skimmer for bang for the buck. but i don't think i will be upgrading from the gsm for a while