i disagree. she definitely doesn't need a protien skimmer on a 30 gallon tank. way too small of a tank to bother with one. we have a 90 gallon salt water with no protien skimmer and it's doing great.

since you aren't going to have any fish in there i would definitely change out at least 50% of the water. since he works at a petstore you can probably get a few buckets of salt water that's already made up (to save you the hassle).

i would definitely give the tank a good scraping with a razor blade before you reset it up.

it does cost a lot to run a saltwater tank, but i'm sure you'll have lots of fun as well... after all a 30 gallon tank is pretty small as far as salt water tanks go. you can probably have 3 or 4 fish in a tank that small.

trust us though... it is a money pit. you just keep dumping money in... and dumping money in,.... and dumping money in LOL