New Tank! (New to me at least)

[DarkHorseMBA]

After much shopping around I finally found the deal I wanted on a used tank and equipment. I’ll be driving up to Austin to pick it Saturday. I’d like to run my plan for setting up and cycling the tank by the group. The tank is 75G (48x18x21), with refugium, skimmer and T5 lighting.

Here is my plan, I’m sure I’ll have more but this is just front of mind.

My criteria:

• I’m not in hurry
• I want to use humane cycling (no sacrificial fish)
• Don’t want to crowd the system with DSB or tons of rock
• I’d like to use plants and DSB in the refugium

The setup plan

• Use Dry sand, about 1.5” – 2”, in the display
• Dry/Base rock, about 70lbs.
• I’ll seed the sand and rock to make them “alive”

Some questions

Sand
What's good sand to use, size/color? I'd like to keep sand sifting livestock, Gobies, Cucumbers, etc.

Placing the Rock
Should I place the sand first, with rock on top, or rock on the base bottom with sand around it?
Another option I've seen is placing the rock on small pieces of PVC to make space under to rock for sand to move.


Cycling
I’ve read that some raw table shrimp will get the process started, just toss it in the tank. Anyone done this, any other recommendations?

Seeding the sand/rock
I’m going to use one of these products to seed.
http://ipsf.com/ (They have sand activator and Coralline Algea Booster™)
http://www.garf.org (The “grunge+” product)

Should I add these after the tank has cycled, or from the get go?
Would I be better off seeding with some live rock, instead of the booster IPSF sells?

Test kits
What’s a good test kit?

Thank you so much for your help, we (my family and I) are excited to begin!
Sunil, DarkHorse