Sorry you are not feeling well.
I vote for putting the sand in now. Get the sandstorm over though the good DR is right about the circulation. The one thing you do want to keep in mind is that you wan the rock to be very stable when you are aquascaping. That is why many people do the rock first and then fill in with the sand. IMHO I re-scape to opften so it dpesn't really matter for me. I just make sure the rocks are solid and go from there.
I don't know anything about painting stands or fake corals so I will leave those alone.
