Are Live Rocks Necessary?!

Hey everyone. I'm a newbie to saltwater tanks. I wanna keep a pair of clownfish. That's it for now. Nothing else till I get some experience.

1) are live rocks and/or live sand really necessary in a Saltwater tank? I'm kinda planning on going with a BB with or without live rock, depending on what you guys say.

2) it'll be a 30-40 gallon tank. It might sound silly but I could I not use an internal filter (which does 800 gallons per hour) as it would work as a wave maker as well as do mechanical filtration? Or do I really have to go for a HOB filter? Or what else could I do?
P.s : don't wanna go for a sump or a canister filter.

Thanks

 

P.p.s : I'm kinda leaning towards going with LR as it might help with biological filtration. No ?

 

from what I have read it is the primary biological filtration of a saltwater tank so they are absolutely needed. However, I don't have saltwater just have done a lot of research so I would wait for someone else's exper opinion

 

You can do fish only...but what kind of internal filter is this? There are some tanks that actually have some sort of internal filters set up on them from what I understand.

 

You can do fish only...but what kind of internal filter is this? There are some tanks that actually have some sort of internal filters set up on them from what I understand.

Umm it's an internal filter I am using in one of my freshwater tanks . It's not a built-in filter

 

Hi,
Read post #2 in this thread: Starting a Saltwater System - Part 2 - Bringing Nature Home (Researching Equipment)

It won't answer your question(s) specifically, but it should give you insight into the benefits of Live Rock.

Personally, I'm not a fan of Fish Only (FO) setups.... Starting a Saltwater System - Part 1 - Where to start (Research)