Hey Jim, Welcome to TRT!
Are you planning on a reef? If so, no on the wet dry; actually no on any other form of bio filtration besides LR.
Wet/dry filters need to be pretty heavily maintained for optimal filtration (rinsed bi-weekly); they collect a lot of detritus in the gaps of and between the media, causing phosphate and nitrate problems; also the bacteria we want is anoxic, so the filtration surface should not be exposed to air.
At around 1-1.5 lbs per gallon the live rock will actually take care of all your nitrogenous ions (ammonia, nitrite, etc.) due to the bacterial coat; check out the Think Tank for further specifics.
If you are planning a fish only, a wet/dry using bioballs or other media would be fine. Fish can handle high levels of nitrate, and with the lower lighting of FO algae is rarely a problem.
Planning on a skimmer?
