Chris,
Yes, I'm a member of the PMAS and it's a good group to join, for the discount at LFSs if nothing else. Of course, trading stuff and learning from everyone is fun, too.
I found this site a year ago via Google, too. If you look at my first posts, you'll see I was basically in the the same place as you a year ago. We all start somewhere.
What you have may be crushed aragonite (I believe the technical term for crushed coral), it's very good for running in a reef tank as it helps stabilize some water parameters and give some of the pods, worms, etc more places to live and do their jobs. I use about a 50/50 mix of crashed aragonite and (CaribSea?) aragonite sand in both of my tanks without issue. I use the sand to help create a deep sand bed which also helps a bit with filtration (at least for about 10 years, from what I've read - my one tank is 5+ years old without any issues). Anyways, if the rocks are pretty rough looking, that may be what you have and a mix might be a good way to go (completely up to personal taste, of course). Also depends on if you want to keep anything that burrows (i.e. a lot of gobies, jawfish, etc), they typically have an easier time if there's some gravel mixed in.
Most pet stores sell sand, but if you don't have your heart set on anything specific you could try looking for play sand that is aragonite (not silicate). You'll want to research this a bit and call around. If I remember correctly I checked around and couldn't find any that was confirmed to be aragonite, so went the LFS route (Wet Pets, in my case).
Also, yes, if you already have live rock, it will in turn create live sand. Same for any additional (dead) rock you add to the tank - give it time and it too will become "live". I did this with both of my tanks - everything "dead" except 1 piece of live rock, let the tank go fallow for the first 6 - 9 months (not counting hermits & snails) just running actinics and the creatures that make everything "live" spread to everything. Much cheaper going that route, just takes patience and learning to enjoy watching the little guys.
No rush on the corals, but if it's going to be a while I'll probably end up donating them to the PMAS raffles next month. Feel free to PM me when you're ready and I'll see what I have at that time. They're all hardy types, so I wouldn't be too worried about having things perfect. Even being out of the tank for a day (as long as they're in tank water) wouldn't faze them too much. These were the ones I started with and believe me I wasn't doing things perfectly at that time, but they survived.
John
