Need larger skimmer

[under_water_ninja]

If your really worried about the nutrients, upgrade the skimmer like you want to do to help reduce No3 and just run a little gfo to bring po4 down a bit and keep it stable, more herbivores(cuc) manual removal of the long stuff and come get more coral!

 

[JVU]

I like the way you think lol. And believe it or not, the wife would be much more on board with more corals.
I’m happy to take suggestions on what corals would be best for my set up. I also need to rent a Par meter.

The club has PAR meters to borrow. I have one available in Walnut Creek. Where are you?

All your info is hidden in your profile, if you let it display and fill out some basic details it helps people help you.

 

[Coral reefer]

When I checked this out it was getting blasted with a lot of light for A LOT of hours with no real corals to speak of. Not sure if you made changes to the photoperiod yet, if not I would. Also add corals like monti caps and even toadstools. Easy stuff

 

[Wanderlust21]

Fish are agitated because there are 8 tangs in a 180g and you aren’t feeding them enough because you’re afraid of your high nutrients

That is possible… we were feeding 3 cubes twice daily and a sheet of nori once or twice daily. Now we’ve dropped the feeding to 2 cubes instead of three. They go nuts at feeding time. With the exception of my Sohal, all the fish appear well fed. Maybe the decreased feeding is a big reason… that’s easy enough to fix. Still need that bigger skimmer though.

 

[CaseyP]

Octo skimmers get my vote, either the Elite or Regal if you're looking for higher end. I have the Elite 220-sss on my 210 gallon and it does a fantastic job with a high bio load (24+ fish). With a variable speed pump you can turn it down until your bio load need the additional power.

If you can wait until black Friday, last year Coralvue had an insane 50% sale on a lot of skimmers including some elite and regal models.

What kind of automation are u thinking of? If you have an apex or hydros, most "smart" things can be achieved like shutting off when the return pumps are off. The Octo ones have a float switch on the collection cup that can turn itself off to prevent overflowing.

 

[dangalang]

That is possible… we were feeding 3 cubes twice daily and a sheet of nori once or twice daily. Now we’ve dropped the feeding to 2 cubes instead of three. They go nuts at feeding time. With the exception of my Sohal, all the fish appear well fed. Maybe the decreased feeding is a big reason… that’s easy enough to fix. Still need that bigger skimmer though.

Maybe try cutting back on the nori a bit too. If they get too full on what you're feeding, they'll never clean your rocks. Put those fools to work!