Possibly starting first ever small FOWLR SW tank and looking for info

[CGY_Betta_Guy]

So I went and got some live rock on sale at Big Als boxing day sale... is it true that I shouldnt have the lights on for the first bit while cycling? There appears to be lots of purples, some orange and some small growths of various things on the rocks already. Should these be situated so that the light would hit them?

[reefwars]

honestly its your own preference your more prone to algae blooms during cycling so leaving your lights on wont help there, but youd need light if you were trying to save any corals. lights wont effect your cycle and it wont hurt to run them a few hours a day either.

some say running actinics 24/7will help in coraline growth while your starting your tank for a couple weeks.

also remember anytime you add liverock thats been out of the water for any period of time to a tank your bound to see an amonia spike be it big or small

[CGY_Betta_Guy]

Thanks for the input Reefwars. Guess I will leave the lights on in case there is some nice stuff capable of growing in the LR. I only have 2 MR16 LED lights and a strip of Automotive LED lights sitting on the top of my tank. Not sure if I have any corals on the live rock but there are a couple forms of circular life form with little arms which I would say "might" be alive. It is moving in the current and doesnt appear to be translucent like other things that seem to be dying off on the rock. It doesnt really have any sort of color though so I am not sure its alive or not and at the moment I cant identify it since I havent done enough research yet. I do seem to have some bristle like appendages that seem to be attached to the rock that have started to get some green color to them which I didnt notice when I first bought the rock. I have no clue what they are but they are short and maybe 1mm across in diameter and maybe 2 - 3mm in length sticking out off the live rock. The green versions of these do seem to have just started coming out and most are dark brown, purple or light tan colored. I would guess its not algae.

Is coraline algae a good thing on live rock? These big patches of purple are pretty pervasive on the one chunk of live rock I have while the other 2 have really small splotches across the surface.

I was going to put some pot scrubbies into my sump but realized that this might not be a good thing in a marine tank vs a FW tank. Should I even bother with the scrubbies in this FOWLR tank?

Still havent tested the water for ammonia and nitrite yet but its only been a couple days since putting the LR in so I figure its a waste doing a test so early. Currently using plain Calgary Tap water dechlorinated with Prime as I dont have a RODI system.
The hydrometer I bought seems to show the salinity is high which is annoying since I followed the instructions on the bag. I seeded the hydrometer but not sure how accurate it is. I decided to splurge for a refractometer while its on sale. Will be changing out a bit of water in a couple days I think.