I won't be putting any live rock in this system to start. Some live rock may wind up in it once corals are added: if the corals are on rock. I'm not 100% sure how I'm going to manage that. If corals can be removed from the rock easily, then I won't be putting any in.
I'm actually very "anti" live rock. While I did start my first system with eight pounds of live rock, and I still use that in the sump of my main display system, I try to avoid it when possible.
While it is true that live rock and dry rock are very different, if one is aware of the differences and is willing to compensate, dry rock can become very efficient very quickly. The difference is in that the bacteria needs to be added to a system using only dry rock, and quite a bit of it. The fuel for the bacteria needs to be added, too.
My NC12, by day 19, was processing a cube of mysis a day. It was so efficient that when I lost two clowns to brook (and never found their bodies) three days apart that there wasn't even a blip in the ammonia reading for the tank.
I'll be adding a lot of Stability and Microbacter7, and a lot of fuel to feed the bacteria. The ammonia in this tank will probably get horrifyingly high at some point, and the tank may start to smell pretty bad, too. The cycle may even stall at some point if the ammonia gets high enough to kill the bacteria. I'm guessing it should be just about cycled by the 23rd of November, though.
