Michael, your advise sounds reasonable, but I left my carbon filtration in as instructed by the RS, also instructed to leave skimmer on but it doesn't seem to be producing much foam anyway. I started my new Max 250 2.5 weeks ago with fully cured liverock (covered with purple corraline) and "ive-sand but have not seen any significant levels of ammonia, nitrate, or nitrite yet. Brown algae came on strong the 2nd week but now seems to be calming down. Guess I'll take a sample to my LFS and talk to them. I started with a deli shrimp (does it matter if it's shelled or not?) but my LFS guy said it wasn't necessary because of the bacteria already in the sand he provided. I know, patience, testing, patience, testing....
If you are seeing brown algae, that means your cycle is going well. Those are diatoms and a natural part of the cycle. Because of using the fully cured live rock, your tank already has enough beneficial bacteria to convert the ammonia and nitrites which is why you are not seeing them. You should be seeing some level of Nitrates as a result, this is what the diatoms are feeding off of.
Once the diatoms start showing up is when I typically like to add my cleanup crew, this is normally around day 15 of the cycle with cured live rock. Uncured or dry typically takes longer, uncured because there is more dead material to process, dry because it takes time to build up the bacteria base to take care of tank with livestock and that is being fed. This should only be a partial crew maybe 1 snail per 3 gallons and 1 hermit (either scarlet reef or blue leg) per 8 gallons. I give them two weeks to clean up the diatoms and any hair algae that grows and then add my first corals and fish. Keep in mind my timeframes are base on using fully cured live rock which I prefer.
Your skimmer is not pulling any skimmate because other than the shrimp, there are no organics to be removed at this time, and keep in mind, carbon is designed to remove organic material. You are trying to add organic material to start your cycle, hence carbon IMO is a hindrance to the process. I turn on my skimmer 10 days into my cycle, once ammonia has spiked, it still does not have anything to really remove, but this allows for a 3 week break in before corals and fish enter the tank. I don't even think about adding any carbon, purigen or gfo until 2-3 months into the tank, mainly because if you have a properly sized skimmer or ATS, are performing routine water changes, your tank should not have enough livestock in it to require the additional filtration supplements. Remember, we are starting and stocking slowly to allow the tank to mature and keep pace with the increased bio-loads. Hence stock and wait, stock and wait.
I hope this helps and all makes sense.
) and get advise from others who are very willing to help. 
