New Tank questions

[weyburnt]

New to this forum seems to be a great deal of info. I have kept many types of fish, I had a marine tank some years ago, that did all right, and was looking at starting another. I was hoping to get some opinions on a few things so please any advice would be appreciated.

I have a 55 gallon bowfront I plan on changing over. With a large hang on filter, Aquaclear. I plan on keeping fish and soft coral, posibly upgrading things later for hard coral. My questions are as follows

Live rock. To get things started proparly how much live rock should I be putting in. I want to set this up right but would like to save my initial startup cost as much as possible. I can add later but what is the minimium starting. As well my LFS suggested using what they called "base rock" underneath my live rock. It is like a dried out coral. This would save my budget imensly say if I used 50 percent live and 50 percent "base." but will this base rock do anything for me towards building a stronger ecosystem other than make my reef look larger?

Second question is lights. I think I will be using t5 lamps, is this my best option, will this sustain most soft coral? The LFS suggested using one atinik and one 10 000k. she said I could also add an LED combo strip to brighten things up. is anyone here succesful with 2 t5 bulbs

Would 4 T5 suit me better. My concerns with 4 t5s are, more difficult to mount into a canopy, Would I have too much heat without fans? Will I have algea problems? and of course again trying to keep my initial startup cost a little lower. Maybe my best bet would be to go with a 2 bulb setup, with futer expansion in mind?

Any input towards this would be greatly appreciated
Thanks