This hobby is very expensive and if you're going to keep a reef, most nice corals are about 50 bucks. If you go with a cheesy skimmer and lose two or three corals and a few fish, that $30-$40 you skimped on has now turned into $250-??? over a few months or so in the loss of fish/corals. Remember you get whatcha pay for and there's a reason or reasons that skimmer is only $50. Even for a smaller tank, you shouldn't even consider anything under $120. Just my opinion. And I speak from experience because I too tried to cut corners here and there and there are two things about this hobby that you have to accept or don't bother doing it. First, it's expensive and second it requires a lot of patients.