Saltwater no live rock or live sand. Can it be done?

I was thinking about doing a project. Just a basic tank, hood, filter and etc. but without live rock and sand. Just saltwater and fish and fake everything else. Would it work? Ideas? Thanks

 

why do you want to do this, or what is the project? the reason i ask is because i think it will be kind of tough. What will be running for filtration?

 

bare bottom? Make sure you have something in there for bacteria to colonize on (fake rock).

 

Technically even a glass of water sitting on a counter will eventually cycle, although slowly.
There are bacterial and fungal microbes every where on every surface.
I prefer to seed my tanks with live rock and dry fish food. I would try to at least get a cup of sand from a running tank.
Or use a product to introduce beneficial bacteria, Dr. Tims and MB7.

 

Well I saw a guy on YouTube, ( don't judge )
Who had just a plain 55g kit from Walmart with the plain hob that's included, except it had saltwater fish in it. I didn't know such a thing was possible, or how to go about doing something like that.

 

This is how most people did it 10-20 years ago, its possible, and easily done, just can lead to a lot of issues and fish loss. Much better ways to do it these days. But I did it like that for years, back in my college days.

 

What kind of issues? How long did your system like that run? Details?
Lol thanks

 

it can be done, the live rock/sand is used as a source of filtration (biological), looks, and a place for your fish to hide. You can replace it with sufficient filtration and like you said decor but you would have to keep up with cleaning the filters weekly. It's usually when filters get ignored that tanks like these start to crash (i'm guilty of this as well).

 

big tanks, too many fish, a lot of death, theres really no reason to do it anymore with what we know. I killed WAY too many fish, but thats how we did it. Before the internet we listened too and trusted our LFS, they were my source of knowledge. And a lot of fish died due to it. I would recommend it, do it right, and it'll save ya money in the long run

 

How well did yours run? Did you keep suitable parameters?