For the rock thing:
Use that rock for 'base rock' in your tank, and then go to the petstore and buy another 30 lbs of live rock. This will seed your base rock and it'll all be live again sometime soon.
This is what I did with my 55g:
35 lbs of base rock i bought from somebody's basement (sound familiar?)
45 lbs of live fiji cured rock from petco (they sold it to me for pennies, really)
40 lbs of live substrate (arag-live or whatever)
salt
2 weeks my tank was fully cycled. Seriously. How sweet was that?
Here's a link to my fishy photo album, if you want an idea of another freshly setup 55g:
http://picasaweb.google.com/damontmorris/Fishtankery
Thanks again. Great help. I'm going to add that as base rock and then i'll buy 25-35 pounds of live rock from a local pet store. It's 6.99 at the place in town. It's a fun hobby but expense is part of it too i guess.
Another question(sorry guys) ... while I'm in Italy, my house is right by the beach in Napoli (best beaches in Italy IMO) ... if I see any Rock or Drift Wood laying around can I bring that home and put that in my tank as well? If I do what do I have to do to clean it? And what precautions do I take to make sure I'm not endangering my Tank? Thanks again.