One more quick question, does anyone know how many watts per gallon it takes to keep the live rock healthy? 

It sounds like you've done your homework well. What's more, it sounds like you have a pretty good understanding of what you've read.

The term "cured rock" is highly relative. Some on line stores sell what they call cured rock, that's great stuff. Others just call uncured rock cured and charge more for it.

I haven't ever purchased rock from live aquaria but I've heard some really good things about their product. Here's the scoop. If it's well cured when it's packaged and it's shipped overnight, there will be minimal die off. This means that with a little saltwater rinse and a good inspection to remove any dying sponges or other large dying items, you should be fine placing it right into your tank. If on the other hand it wasn't cured to start with or it was out of the curing vats for several days between shipping and receiving (especially with these hot summer temps), you'll want to recure it in a separate tank. The way to tell which category your rock falls into is to visually inspect it and smell it. If it smells like dead fish, recure it. If it looks pretty clean and smells like the beach (clean saltwater) you're probably good to go.

If you elect to place it right in your tank, go ahead and mix enough new saltwater to do a 20% change the next day. This will insure that any residual die off is removed immediately from the system. Also keep a close watch on your ammonia for the next few days just to be sure everything's OK.

If you need to cure it outside of your display tank, something as simple as a cheap ($10.00) plastic tub from WalMart or Lowes will do the trick. I take an old tooth brush and scrub off anything that looks dead, (leaving everything that's still in good shape), rinse it in saltwater (you can use old tank water, just don't use freshwater) and place it in a tub of new saltwater. At this stage the most important thing to do is to provide good water motion to keep the oxygen level up. Drop a powerhaed in the bottom of the tub pointing slightly up. This will insure that all of the water is being turned over and that you get good gas exchange. If you have an extra protein skimmer that you can hook into the system this too would be a big help but not everybody just has an extra skimmer lying around. Do water changes to the tub often for the first week or 2. Small daily changes (20%) or large changes every other day (40-50%) will do the trick. The water changes will help dilute the pollutants as well as provide the nutrients and minerals that the surviving life on your rock will need to make a come back. Lighting isn't necessary. Coralline algaes, beneficial bacteria and the small copepods etc. that inhabit the rock don't need it. The only thing that will really benefit from lighting would be hair algae.

Wow, wrote a novel!! Hope some of it is useful to you. Good luck and hope you get some really good stuff!! :)

So many species, so little money!