heh one of my
lfs has a placo with a hump in his back, cause someone raised the poor guy to be about a foot long in a 20g tank..
talk about misery...
lively healthy fish...just...hump backed..
anyways..
The 'rule of thumb' is anywhere from .75 - 2lbs of live rock per gallon, depending on who you talk to.
20lbs would be right in there.
The
LR will add biological filtration, and if you get it first, will do your cycle for you (no need for the shrimp or pig-fish (aka damsels)).
I for one say cycle it how it best fits you. I know a couple people that did the old school method of using fish to 'start the cycle'.
One of em killed a bunch of fish by not reading and adhereing to best practices, the other had happy healthy fish because he did constant management.
That said, the most reliable (and from personal experience, reawrding) method is to go to the
lfs (or order) and get some live rock.
Have your water up and going for a couple days before you get it.
Have your
sg and all that right enough (get water from the
lfs or make your own with
ro/
di (aka drinking water at the grocers).
Remember rock takes up space, so be ready to remove water (or best, take a gallon or two out before the first rock goes in - save it, might need to top back off).
Rinse your rock with tap water (that's what I did). If the rock smells...stanky... scrub it with an unused toothebrush (even if your
LFS says it's cured, it's only barely so..prolly a good bit of dead stuff ont here..usually is white...)
I'd advocate against getting over zealous.. sometimes you can loose some nice items due to scrubbing..
Use common sense.. if it looks like dead crap, remove it.
If it looks like something especially interesting, leave it.
Give that rock a few days in the water with lights n heater n all going (that's what I did anyhow) and start your daily testing.
Keep a log.. it can be handy..
So, just to start it... whatever you had for fresh will work in the mean time.. corals and anenomes take the higher lighting, but it sounds like you got that part..
regular ole flourescene lights work fine for fish for a while. the rock won't care either.. might not get as much growth, but the stuff will be there to grow when you get to adding the proper conditions.
Ok..that's the long, here's the short.
Clean tank.
Substrate settled.
Water in and at the proper
sg.
Tank running for a few days.
Add your rock.
Wait a while/test your water to ride out the cycle.
Prolly more to it then that heh, but I'm still a newb of sorts myself..
(but that's all I did, and my box-o-rocks looks awesome)
gl and keep askin questions!!