
The hobby has come a long way in 15 years. I got into it in 1993 starting with an undergravel filter. That soon changed and I have tried to keep on the cutting edge of biological filtration ever since. An old expert in the hobby, Julian Sprung, has said that a tank can do fine without a lot of gadgets, such as a skimmer, but cannot survive without good biofiltration.
This link
http://www.utahreefs.com/SeaStar/wmasSeaStar02Feb.pdf to the Sea Star Newsletter has a lot of good articles that you may enjoy and the link below in my signature will help you get back into the hobby in a good way.

Let me know if you want some Utah Sand and Utah Rock.