I'm in the process of setting up a 180g. I need some suggestions on sumps, skimmer and anything else to go along with it. My openings inside of my stand is 16" wide. I am going to hopefully put a trigger and some eels in the tank. I know there are a bunch of sumps and sump/ skimer combos to choose from. Any input on what to go with or what to avoid would be a great help to me. thanks

what is the height inside the stand? If you're not doing a reef, it's my opinion that you don't really need a huge sump, but if you have room for a good skimmer to clean up after messy eaters, that would be a good idea. depending on your cash flow, I would look into maybe an ASM G4X or a Euroreef skimmer, other quality brands are H&S, Deltec, and octopus is a new knock off that seems to be getting great reviews. I'm sure you could get Andy from myreefcreations.com to build you a fine sump here locally, and his company makes fantastic Beckett style skimmers as well. adn MR-2 with maybe a second injector would handle your tank just fine--it just depends if you want to go with an in-sump or external skimmer, really.

The height of the cabinet is approx. 38"

Any of the above mentioned skimmers should work, then, just depends on what you want, and how much money you want to spend. i'd look into the ASM G4+ or a G4X for simplicity and price. You could run it in your sump and forget about it.

I have an old glass sump I can use if it is large enough. The sump is 14" x 32" x 16" tall. The area for the bio media measures 15 x 14 x 16. There rest is baffled off for medchanical media and then it goes to the bulk head fitting. Would this be large enough for a 36 x36 x 30 tank with trigger and eels?

Turbo Flotor 1000 with the ocean runner pump would be fine on this....... After all they are the ones who started the needle wheels...:)