The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you cycle your baserock it becomes "live" as you cycle. Within a month or two it will look as live as regular live rock. I can barely tell the difference in my tank now and it's been 4 months or so. It's all covered in coralline algae and blends in perfectly.
you can cycle your tank with shrimp or ammonia dosing using only baserock, every tank is different as to how long it takes, some a couple weeks some 5 weeks.