the cycle will best start by adding a piece of cocktail shrimp to the tank, allow it to decay and watch the ammonia level climb. One the ammonia is significantly high, there is no set number, remove the decaying piece of shrimp and let the water age. No water changes are needed at this point. Once the ammonia falls to 0, you should start to see nitrite rise, this will fall in time as well, and you will see your nitrate rise. Once the nitrate is up, its safe to do some water changes to lower the nitrate levels. I also like to add a small clean up crew. This will have to be determined to weather or not your going to keep reef fish, or big predator type fish. Certain fish will eat hermit crabs and what not. Total elapsed time should be somewhere around the 5-6 week range. After the clean up crew has been added, and the water stays stable you can add your first fish. Keep the additions low in numbers and size, to avoid any major spike in ammonia. I should have added this at the beginning but o well, all the Live Rock you plan on having in the tank, should be added before fish. The addition of live rock will always have some amount of die off and can raise your ammonia to unsafe levels and cause the loss of fish or a break out of disease.
its safe to say that its the best idea to QT any fish you plan to keep as well. This allows you to catch any diseases before they enter your main display tank.
I would advise in getting all the test kits that were recommended earlier and get a good book to read on the basic setup and care of fish and the system. Good books come in really handy from time to time.
