Base rock/Live rock seeding question

I'm starting a 180 gallon with mostly base rock. I have 230lbs ordered. I'm not sure if that's too much, I doubt it, but if it is I'll just put the extra in the sump as it's fairly large.

My question is, when I'm ready for it, how much live rock do I need to seed the tank? Does it really matter, meaning if I go with as little as 20-40 pounds will that eventually give the same results as going with 75 pounds plus in the beginning?

I understand that the more live rock I get the more chances I have of getting beneficial hitchhikers, but I guess the trade off is the chance of getting the bad hitchhikers too, not to mention the extra cost :-/

 

I think 10% of cured LR is sufficient. The issue as I see it is that the biological filter needs a food source as well. When cycling a tank unless you are ghost feeding, a certain degree of the nitrifying bacteria is going to die back and then the population will wax and wane according to the bio-load.

 

I seed mine with one piece of live rock and about 3 cups of sand out of a established tank. After a few weeks of cycling when I turn the actincs on I will seed for Coraline by turning off all the pumps and taking a piece of LR with Coraline on it and break it up and let it fall all over the rock in the tank. Then after about 2 hrs I turn the pumps on again after the spores have had time to settle on rocks.

 

That's a cool idea for speeding up the Coraline spread. I would have never thought about that.

 

Just make sure you crush is up with a pair of pliers or something and leave the pumps off for a while.