[Myka]

It sounds like a fun project (I like projects). I don't think you will see anything remarkable though. As sphelps said, whatever rock goes in will eventually become live rock, unless it is plastic rock of course.

I think the key thing will be low bioload which means you won't be able to feed any of the corals. It doesn't matter how food gets into the water, food is food, and it all ends up either rotten or as poop.

I have a similar thing going on with my 10 gallon temporary tank. It has a Green Mandarin in it (that eats frozen food), and the tank is an utter algae bloom. It's a disaster in that tank. I do twice a month 60% waterchanges. Maybe I could get a handle on the algae if I did more waterchanges. The tank is just temporary though, so I'm not bothered enough to do much about it.