Kudos to you first of all for finding a great, education, fun hobby to enjoy with your sons, I think that is AWESOME! And I'm sure you all will enjoy learning about reefs together!
I'm attatching a picture of my set up, mind you it's my first set up but thought it'd just be nice to see a visual of what the 'dead rock' as a base looks like. Also, my tank is not done yet, it still needs about 45lbs of lr in it which I plan to avoid a stacked look by (warning, contradiction coming!) stacking my last batch to cascade up and towards the back of my tank, leaving the sides and front very open for fish and other inverts, and also keeping in mind I'd like to leave one or two cave areas for fish to hide. (I already have three cave areas so far).
I do wish I had just bought all my lr at once though! But since I wasn't sure of the dealer (Walt Smith on ebay, EXCELLENT lr salesman! Excellent lr!) I only ordered a small amount...
Anyways, enough of my jabbering, here's what my dt looks like now. It's been cycling for almost 7 weeks.
Good luck with your reef!
Dana