almost all of the rock in my tank was dry if you put a few algae covered live rock peices in a wavemaker or filter the waterflow will blow the algea off onto the dry making it seed quicker and get colorful
look at used skimmers on ebay or craigslist. Only big differnce will be the price if you're looking at hob's i can tell you that the coralifes are pretty good and inexpensive the one i own now is an aquaeuro usa and it is one of the best besides the aqua remora