Well, I can tell you how to do it without much of a cycle anyway. This will also depend on how you want the set up to look etc . If you want a d.s.b. what I would do is fill the tank about 20-25% with water put in your first tier of l.r. ," on the glass bottom so you don't have problems down the road", put in new clean play sand and run a small cycle," shrimp a little ammonia etc." This will make your sand sticky with bacteria and will help out with instant denitrification it will probably take a couple of weeks though. Get a small power head attach to glass for water movement etc and a heater. You don't have to follow this first step but, if you want a sand bed I would other wise you'll have the mother of all sand storms when you set up your tank .
The next of first step depending on what you decide would be to add your l.r. Do this as quickly as possible try to remove as many sponges as possible or, to make sure the rock that they are on aren't exposed to the air. Air will kill them on contact and it can greatly increase the amonunt of ammonia in your water leading to a domino affect. Again do this step as quickly as you can safely place the rock in your new tank time really is of the essence the longer the rock is exposed to the air the more die off you'll have. Fill tank with new s.w. have it ready to go before you start moving your rock. You might also consider adding more curred live rock at this time to fill up your tank. You'll need from 80 to 140 more lbs to reach the desired amount. If I recall you have quite a few fish that get fairly large and this will really help with your water conditions. Add your fish after normal temp adjustment if you use water from the same source as your tank water acclimation for FISH should be a pretty quick straight forward matter. For inverts like corals, stars etc you still will want to do a slow introduction they are very sensative to changing water conditons.
After this process is done check your water at least 2 times per day for the first week or so. You still might have a mini spike that can be fixed by water changes if you can keep your ammonia below .5 ppm it won't hurt your fish and below about .01 ppm for inverts like corals, star fish etc. As a matter of fact if you have a hospital tank it might be a good idea to put your stars, corals etc into it until you're sure that there won't be a spike.
If you do have a cycle from this it's will most likely be what we refer to as a mini spike. It should end within a couple weeks max it's also possible that you won't have one at all.
hth and please keep up posted.
Chris
