any suggestions on a decent skimmer, hang on i guess cuz my tank is a 31G as i said and the hood has very small limited openings.. might have to modify it?

and this is pointed towards Bob, where do you go to get supply's Aquarium illusions as it is the close's salt store to St.Albert, or are there prices high?

You don't really have to get rid of your Fluval. That's all I run on my 20gal. Just don't use any of the media or foam that comes with it. Gut it and fill it with live rock rubble. I run carbon and live rock in mine and the outflow is fitted to a spray bar running the length of the tank which is more than enough flow in my system. If you do buy a skimmer stay away from any of the super skimmers by Coralife. Sure the price is tempting but you get what you pay for and you'll wake up on more than one occasion with wet floors.

pretty clever way to mimic a sump :-)

Placing a live rock rubble
 

Hi Mmax, can I ask you where do you place your live rock rubble? Bottom or top?
I will be running a Rena xp1 on my 40 gal. It has 2 sections in a basket.
Should I place live rock on a bottom one, then a divider, then a carbon bag.
Or all the way around?

Thanks.

PM sent- re:stores

Hi Chase, I would like to suggest you skip a skimmer completely. Imo, the only hang-on skimmer that's worth buying would be a Deltec, and they are very pricey. Considering the size of your tank I would suggest you go skimmerless. Softies and LPS do well without a skimmer. If you were wanting to later get into SPS then you should invest in a skimmer. Right now, if I were you I would put as much money into quality live rock as you can afford. I wouldn't cheap out on dry base rock (especially if you go skimmerless), as live rock is the best filter you can buy, and dry base rock won't function like live rock for at least a year. If you buy cheap base rock (like Caribsea Reef Rock) it will be dense, and will never become truly live rock with anaerobic bacteria in the middle of the rock. I would suggest you try to find about 25 lbs of live rock for your tank. Start with that amount, and you can use all the pieces, look for more if you prefer, or put some in your Fluval if you don't want that much. Rock varies, and so do people's ideas on aesthetics. Some people have 2lbs per gallon crammed into their tanks, and others will have 3/4lb in their tanks.

I wouldn't be too worried about a sump on your tank either. I think you will be happier if you stick to the KISS theory (Keep It Simply Silly). :)

If you click on "My tanks" in my signature and check out my 33g reef I used to have, I maintained that LPS dominant reef for quite some time skimmerless. As you can see the corals did very well. The lighting on that tank is a Hagen GLO 2x39w T5HO fixture which is a rather reasonably priced fixture at around $140 I think it was.

Keep your eyes open for used equipment, and live rock. You should be able to find "used" live rock for around $4/lb on these forums. If you go that route, try to take someone with you that has experience with reefs to check out the rock with you to make sure it is healthy and free from pests (like algae, hydroids, aiptasia, majanos, etc).

All very good advise that I would follow to a T. I used to run a 33 gallon as well without a skimmer, and the LPS/Softies/fish did well. Just don't come close to overstocking until you do look at going with a skimmer. And I wouldn't cook your rock.
As for salt, I was using a high end salt, but the readings weren't great, and definitely not what they were supposed to be. With all the studies out there, and since you are just getting into it, I would suggest going with a cheaper salt that has high grades with most studies, Instant Ocean. Also, most sea salt is at 1.026, so that is something you may want to consider.
As for the fluval, as others have suggested, strip it down, and run carbon in it, and it will work well for you. If this is your only source of flow in the tank, you will probably want to get something more as this isn't very much.

okay well im sticking with the fluval (will gut it b4 live rock is put in) probably look around for some used live rock as its way cheaper then the $12 a lbs at aquarium illusions ill bump the salt to 1.025-1.026 (right now im using MEERSALTZ public Aquarium maintenance Formula). not sure what all my other levels are like as i haven't purchased a test kit yet (the whole grade 12 high school budget thing) the salt is just what Aquarium illusions told me to use, they were quite busy on Saturday.

+1 to the skimmerless idea also. I tried a Coralife when I first started my system and it was more of a pain in the a** than anything. Threw it away and have no problems running without it.

I forgot to mention raising the specific gravity to 1.025-6 as well. Oops. I have never heard of that salt, and i would personally be wary of it just because it's not a well-known salt. Might as well finish off what you have though.

To save yourself some money on test kits, don't worry about getting any until you want to add LPS (or SPS) corals. Soft corals will be ok without testing the big 3 as long as you do 10-15% weekly water changes. When you do want to add corals you will need to buy calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium supplements and test kits. You could talk to littlesilvermax on the forums here about getting some "raw chemicals" to supplement. It's quite cheap that way. Those are the "big 3" test kits you will need. For calcium and alkalinity I would suggest either API (cheaper) or Elos (pricey), and for magnesium API, Salifert (mid-range), or Elos are all pretty accurate. Don't cheap out any more than API on kits though or your tests won't be accurate which kinda make them a moot point, ya know? :p

Both ammonia and nitrite are generally just used in the first few months for monitoring how the nitrogen cycle is progressing and handling the addition of new critters. Later on if there are issues in the tank. Since they aren't used often you can usually get your LFS to check for you once a week while you're starting up, and going through your cycle. Pay attention to the brand of test kits they use though. Nitrate is something I like to test for one a month or so (and when the cycle first ends), which is also something your LFS can do for you, or you can get a kit of your own (I like Salifert's nitrate kit).

If you do go skimmerless you do have to be careful to not over-stock the tank, and also make sure you're up on water changes and have good circulation in the tank so that no detritus builds up. With the Fluval you will need to clean it at least once weekly. Since canister filters are a PITA to clean, I have always preferred hang-on power filters like AquaClear just for ease of changing out filter media. I find the easier it is to perform the maintenance the more likely I am (or you) to actually do it!