Here's my 20 gallon with all wild ocean live rock from around Indonesia...I've never had a ugly phase and even though it's new it seems to be a thriving little ecosystem
No easy way to test it with tap water, Plus getting large amounts of water out of the tank would not be too easy. I also still need to get some sort of mixing container for making more salt water but figured the first time it could be done in the tank since it would not have anything.
Hell I could fill it up a good part of the way get it to temp and put wave makers in and mix the water in the tank before live rock and sand went in. Of course, leaving enough room for the sand and rock.
Ended up ordering the stand I need today from amazon. Ordered Salt, Sand and rock and a HOB filter from BRS. Decided against the place in florida when I saw they do a flat shipping fee of 156.00 dollars. Not really wanting to pay that much to ship 2 bags of sand and 8 lbs of rock. The shipping was nearly double of what the sand and rock costs to buy