Starting a reef tank

On Sep 24, 11:10 pm, George Patterson wrote:
Big Habeeb wrote:
Anything I'm forgetting?

Sounds good for a start. Need live rock, salt water, and eventually various test
kits, but the hardware you have lined up is ok. You might need better lighting
if you want to keep hard corals.

George Patterson
If you torture the data long enough, eventually it will confess
to anything.

Allow me to rephrase slightly: I've done a ton of reading on it, and
in concept understand how to go about setting it up. I guess at this
point its more the order of operations I'm confused by...lets fast
forward to tomorrow: my tank is built, filter setup, no water in it,
no substrate, no rock, but it's ready to get started.
What is first? Can live rock survive out of water for awhile? Can it
survive in fresh water for awhile? By awhile I mean, while I add the
water, then add the salt mix...or do I need to mix the salt water and
add it in smaller quantities (i.e. from a bucket)? How does one
attach the live rock to each other? Do I just stack it or can it be
glued, as I've read of doing with other corals to attach TO the live
rock...also, I'm assuming that I need a sand substrate first and I've
heard this referred to as "live sand"...same questions apply there,
meaning can it survive out of water, in fresh water etc

Any help that can be provided would be appreciated. I'm sure the guy
at the shop will be happy to answer all of this for me when I go to
pick up my setup...but I'd like to go in educated.
Mitch