reef tank, no live rock?

well i just came across an awesome idea, well i happened to see a tank like this at a guys house while buying something from him off craigslist.

it was very interesting, he had absolutely no live rock or dry rock, he just had large coral colonies placed directly on the sandbed, but the corals, mostly sps, had grown so large it looked like it was a natural reef. like somebody just took a glass box into the ocean and placed it around a section of reef.

the only rocks he had in the tank were several large flat ones on the sandbed to anchor the coral colonies, the largest colony in there was probably 3 feet tall. he also had a massive piece of montipora capricornus that was a couple feet wide. and created a great shelving effect on the left side of the tank.

i am very interested in doing a tank like this but on a smaller scale like a 30 gallon tank. any ideas? any problems i may run into?

 

you'll have to run some kind of biomedia if you want fish. a wet/dry bioball set up would be best but you'll need to clean your balls. what size tank are you looking into?

 

i dont know if fish will be anywhere in the picture, maybe once i get the tank up and running. i waid about a 30 gallon, maybe 40.

 

haha you'll have to clean your balls(I couldnt resist)

 

PSHHH.

i would recommend adding a fish or two to the system to keep up the beneficial bacteria population so that you don't get a mini cycle every time you feed your lps.

 

true, if so i would most likely only add a few cardinals or somehting. i want to avoid mixing fish species. trying to keep it as peaceful as possible.

 

Good idea. If this is big enough a school of chromis would be sweet.