I'm wondering.... if I purchase about 25 lbs of base rock for my 29 gallon, and then about 5 lbs of live rock, will the die off from the live rock be enough to start a cycle, and will it be enough to seed the rest of the rock and sand in the tank?

How much lighting is required in a FOWLR tank? I know there has to be enough to sustain life on the rock, but how much?

With the eclipse III hood, would it be wise to purchase a retrofit kit to get more WPG?

Thanks!

I use the method 80% base rock and 20% live rock so that is the perfect amount of base rock and live rock for your tank in my opinion.

What type of lighting are you going to be using? Fluorescent, PC, VHO, MH, etc. If you are doing a FOWLR then NO Fluorescent lighting would work just fine. 10K bulbs would look great and you could even have a Actinic bulb with a 10K bulb.

Well what do you want to keep in this tank? if you want to keep any corals then you would probably want more lighting then what the Eclipse hoods provide. How any watts are the bulbs and what type of bulbs are they? Also how many bulbs does the hood come with? Even if you don't want any corals a good PC lighting is great for a FOWLR tank as the tank is much brighter and the colors of the fish stand out more.

Sounds good. I'll have to check on the exact wattage on the eclipse hood. They are natural daylight bulbs.

Great to hear about the live rock. I hate to spend so much money on the live rock when I can seed it just as easily. No corals are going to be in the tank at the moment. Maybe in the future, and then I'll add some upgraded lighting. This is going to be enough to grow bacteria on the live rock to filter the water, nothing more.