Deffinately do your research. Every tank is different and will act differently under different strains. When I first setup my 65Gal tank, one piece of liverock came with a fish. VERY SURPRISED TO SEE him when the sand finally settled enough to see him. I paniced and did as much reading as I could to help him stay alive through the cycle. Granted I stayed with most others in this hobby and purchased 50lbs of live rock and 20lbs of base rock(to help with costs). It was a lawnmower blenny that came into the tank as soon as it was setup. I can almost guarantee that reefwars is right. Without algae the lawnmower blenny will perish. Live rock deffinately helped him. I had to special feed him till the live rock started to produce the much NEEDED algae. I also used and stand by this now, a chemical called Stability which I think helped a great deal, but no way to prove this. Stability is introducing the biological filter that reefwars is talking about. I tested everyday, sometimes twice a day and never had an ammonia spike. But once again you need the EXTRAS from live rock to help your tank. I, of all people deffinately love to try new things in this hobby so let me know which way you go and how it turned out. And deffinately do NOT put glass on the top of the tank. I did with mine and I also have a skimmer. I almost lost all of my fish due to this and would recommend against it no matter what the case. It was due to the lack of Oxygen exchange at the surface of the water due to no air can get through glass. And as for plumbing, can't help you there as I do not have a sump on either of my tanks. Good luck.
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