Putting sand in my tank tonight

Whats up guys, I am putting in live carribean sand tonight and I was wondering if I have to leave skimmer on or off? I have heard to leave it on so it can pick up stuff but then I also heard to turn it off because it's going to pick up too much while I am cycling which they told me I dont want that. What should I do? btw I am putting in live rock on friday.

Thanks

I don't think it needs ran until you get fish and stuff in it. I could be wrong though.

Leave it off till the dust settles, but keep your main filtration on.
Skimmers aren't really needed till you have some live stock in there. But its good to run them and get it broken in and learn your adjustment and levels before you really need it running. You should only get an occasional bubble pop over into the cup, you want to get super concentrated crud out with it! The gunk in the cup should smell very bad, that means its pulling out the yucky stuff!

Thanks guys, woohoo I can finnaly put sand in tonight. What do you guys think about Haitian rock? I want to buy live rock tomorrow, any ideas where I can go where they have good prices? Any other ideas?

Good luck with that.
Fern knows where the good prices are.

Boardroom aquatics, $6.49 per pound, good clean well cured live rock.
Wherever you get your rock make sure its cured, lots of stuff dies off in the shipping process and that makes for a nasty ammonia spike!

Pick the rock YOU like, its your tank Make sure to leave some room to add more though! You will always find that piece you cant live without or a coral on a decent sized rock, so leave room for more!