Right now the tank is pretty boring but once it gets more stuff added I will post some for sure.

At least 2 inches and up to 3 inches will harbour all kinds of critters that live in the sand and allow you to choose certain wrasses and fish that prefer a deeper sand bed.

Most experienced reefers will advise you to go slow to avoid most of the problems you read about.
Ask questions before you buy look at adding one fish per month unless they are really tiny.

+1

Most of my reefer friends & I have come to the consensus that buying "live" sand is falling for a marketing ploy.

Consider a few factors:

Bacteria is what makes "live" sand, "live".
Bacteria multiply like crazy when nutrients are present.
Before they began charging a premium for bagged "live" sand, the standard practice was to get regular aragonite sand & a cup or two of old sand from an established tank to add the bacteria into the new sandbed.
Heck, even the bacteria in your live rock should add bacteria to the new sandbed to help make it "live" eventually.
Therefore, no need to buy bagged "live" sand.

JMHO,

Anthony

Yeah I plan on taking it slow with the fish. Clean up crew first, and slowly as well. I think just having them in there will be really neat to see. Even after having the tank sitting her empty I am excited to get the rock into it lol

In a 25 gal that deep (2-3 inches) of a sand bed will leave less room for rock

i think its fine for your first tank to buy some of the packaged stuff, just make sure it isn't expired :P