Skimmer suggestion
 

I have had a semi-reef tank for about 15 years. Not a lot of corals, but enough to add some visual appeal to my tank. In an effort to save a bit on time and money, I sold the corals I had and I am now converting to a FOWLR. My tank is 220 gallons, I would like to keep perhaps a lionfish, miniatus grouper, and perhaps either an eel or another fish or two. Not a lot of fish, but the fish I will have will still create a fair amount of bio-load. Currently I have the same euro-reef skimmer that I started out with, but feel that I may need a more efficient skimmer due to the heavier bio load and I am guessing technology may have improved in the past 15 years. What would be some good suggestions for a new 'in sump' skimmer for this setup? Would like to keep below $500, but that is not set in stone. I think I have about 23-24" in height room and footprint room is about 18X18 or so. Thanks for any and all suggestions.

There is nothing wrong with a Euro-reef skimmer if it works and is properly sized. It is a needle wheel skimmer and would keep up with most skimmers today.

If you want a new skimmer you may want to look at Aquamaxx skimmers they use a nice Sicce pumps and are reasonably priced. Made a little cheap but they perform pretty well...

Some or the ReeF octopus skimmers are pretty nice too.

Staying under 500.00 for a tank that size with the load those fish will add might be tough.

Thanks for the reply. The only thing I don't like about my Euro-reef is that the discharge pipe (not sure what else to call it) uses sponges that go over the discharge tube. I would like to have a discharge pipe that doesn't use the sponges, but I am not sure if you can still get parts for the euro-reef. Will have to check into it. But your saying they don't really make them all that much better has me thinking to keep it. It was one of the better skimmers 15 years ago, just didn't know if technology has made them a lot better now. Thanks for your reply!

There are better skimmers they just cost some.. I really like the ATB skimmers and my favorite is Ultra Reef but it is a import pretty much at this point now. There are others people have been having success with like Nyos.

Ultra Reef actually is not to bad in price and uses Sicce pump too.

The real big change is allot of skimmers now use controllable DC pumps. Some like them some dont.

buy a life reef skimmer and never look back.

You can get just about any type of skimmer (used) for under $500. If you make size the limiting factor, you'll also shrink your list of potential options. From there you can do some searches to see which one(s) has the best reviews.