New to this... any recommendations???

[schmidt01]

Hi everyone! I've been reading through your posts for the past few days and you all seem to REALLY know what you're doing, so can you offer a newbie any advice?
I just converted my 48 gallon freshwater aquarium to a salt water aquarium a week and a half ago. I've got 50 lbs of live rock in the aquarium now to get the cycle going. I also have live sand. How long do you think it will take the tank to cycle? The fish store said 2 weeks with the live rock, but that seems short to me. Everything I'm reading says 4-8 weeks.
I'm also curious about something I've read in my books and online..... if copper is bad for a reef aquarium and you treat a fish with ich in a quarentine tank with copper, how do you reintroduce them to the main aquarium? Just curious... I'm obviously not at that stage yet, but I don't understand how you could keep copper from getting in the main tank.
Also, I don't have a quarentine tank set up yet, but there's a guy selling a 12 gallon nano on craig's list that I was thinking of buying as a quarentine tank since it's got everything I'd need built into it (right?).
Can you seasoned pros give me some words of advice?

[b16drag]

Some say cycling takes 24 hrs, especially those selling products! hah But I think on average about 2-3 months. Seriously the best way to know is to follow your chemistry levels of your tank. Once ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite goes down to 0 its cycle. Keep in mind everytime you introduce new rocks or new stuff, it tends to do a mini cycle bumping up the levels a bit and then it will settle down again. MOST important detail that no one can teach you is..."patience"

I'm sure someone else has a more "expert" opinion/fact about the copper deal, but I just reacclimate the fish to the main tank and afterwards figured that the original water from the quarantinen tank has been diluted significantly. I then try to get just the fish into the main tank with minimal water from the quarantine.