I've been very busy acquiring parts to expand my system most importantly the stand in order to match up with the flavor of the other. Even though they are very old well luck was on my side. I'm set to go minus a light.
Quick update , I've been a bit of a hypocrite and I'm sorry. In a recent post I said I don't use a skimmer because I don't believe it's necessary to remove the excess nutrient that way because biological filtration can take care of most of them. So the thing is I still believe a skimmer is not required, and in light of what dz6t said about how great it is for oxygen levels because that's obviously true, it also certainly can't hurt to remove excess nutrients mechanically and the fact I had a free one available and the real-estate for it HOB style I couldn't help but to pull the trigger. It's a CPR HOB CYHO II , alot of reviewers for this skimmer don't seem to like it, then there are a few who love and swear by them saying the pull skim very well and nice and dark. I'm going to vouch for the positive reviewers and for the size of my system it's working great, it's pulling nice dark skim. When I empty it for the first time I'll post some pics and if your interested you can compare the crud I'm pulling and tell me if it looks like weak tea. Maybe they are skimming to wet I don't know for sure. I don't know for sure but anyways I'm enjoying it, here are a couple pics!!