Hi,
I would like to advise you against store bought "live sand". In my opinion it's nothing more than wet sand in a bag. My local LFS guy says it's caused an algal bloom in everyone's tank he's ever known and from a biological point of view if you lock up a bunch of microorganisms in a bag with no oxygen...well you're just gonna end up with dead sand (hence a bunch of nitrates hence the algal bloom). You're better off getting dry aragonite sand and if you must you can seed with a cup of real live sand from your other tank or a friend's tank or just let the live rock do it for you. As far as using water from you old tank (in my opinion) shouldn't matter. I mean you want your water parameters to be perfect and there shouldn't be anything special about old water except nitrates, diatoms (kinda bad). I imagine there's some zooplankton in there and phytoplankton (kinda good), but nothing that your live rock shouldn't be able to seed. After all the "stuff" that cycles your tank should be living in/on your live rock not in the water column. Bacteria in water = stinky! That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, i'm just saying it probably won't make a difference. And yes you should move the live rock in there before the cycle since it will help to cycle your tank. However as long as it's live rock it doesn't really matter if it's from your old tank or from your LFS.
To sum that up:
1. Don't use store bought live sand
2. Doesn't really matter if you use water from your old tank (unless your water parameters were bad, had problems with ick etc., then you shouldn't)
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Nora
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