FWIW I have ran a skimmer for maybe 6 weeks in a combined 14 years or so in this hobby. Tried it, didn't like emptying fish shit and stopped. It might be necessary for a heavily stocked acropora tank but for LPS and macroalgae I think you will be fine without it, ditto for filter rollers. Refugiums and GFO are quite capable when not overstocked or overfeeding.
Best thing I ever did water change wise was buy enough hose to reach from a 20g Rubbermaid to my tank. I put a black piece of electric tape on the back side of the display tank. Now when I do a water change I turn off the power heads and return pump. Then pump water to my kitchen sink down to the tape mark. Throw the pump in the Rubbermaid in the garage and fill it back up. No buckets minimal mess.
As for your flow it does look like it might be lacking based on what appears to be a sheet of Cyano but also it's not an easy thing to judge without a video or camera so if you think it's good then you do your thing. A very good approach is to aim the power heads at each other and have them either set for random flow or mirror eachother. Put the high up just before they suck air. Corals can handle a lot of flow, even low flow corals will thrive in more flow than you think the difference between low flow and high flow corals *in my opinion* is how long they can stand to be hit by a swale/peak flow, not the actual power of that flow.
Lighting you got plenty of par for what your are keeping. I grew out massive monti, stylo, poscilliopra colonies with 220-250 par max. The tank was eating 52mL a day of all for reef when it crashed due to a power outage.
Hope all of that helps some. The tank is really cool with the feather duster and bright macro algaes.
Best thing I ever did water change wise was buy enough hose to reach from a 20g Rubbermaid to my tank. I put a black piece of electric tape on the back side of the display tank. Now when I do a water change I turn off the power heads and return pump. Then pump water to my kitchen sink down to the tape mark. Throw the pump in the Rubbermaid in the garage and fill it back up. No buckets minimal mess.
As for your flow it does look like it might be lacking based on what appears to be a sheet of Cyano but also it's not an easy thing to judge without a video or camera so if you think it's good then you do your thing. A very good approach is to aim the power heads at each other and have them either set for random flow or mirror eachother. Put the high up just before they suck air. Corals can handle a lot of flow, even low flow corals will thrive in more flow than you think the difference between low flow and high flow corals *in my opinion* is how long they can stand to be hit by a swale/peak flow, not the actual power of that flow.
Lighting you got plenty of par for what your are keeping. I grew out massive monti, stylo, poscilliopra colonies with 220-250 par max. The tank was eating 52mL a day of all for reef when it crashed due to a power outage.
Hope all of that helps some. The tank is really cool with the feather duster and bright macro algaes.
