1) lr is rock which is full of life, bacteria(beneficial), pods(bugs that clean up the garbage), and often inverts and beneficial algae, also lr is marine safe whereas alot of other types of rock could be lethal in a sw aquarium(lava rockis one taht lfs often sell, but is not good for a sw aquarium)
2)curing is letting all of the dead stuff finish dying off, and allowing the life on the rock to restart(basically), what happens in shipping is some of the stuff will start dying or die, and this in your tank will cause an ammonia spike wich starts your cycle and kills almost any fish or inverts you ahve in your tank alot of the stuff you have on the rock will regrow itselfafter the cycle is complete, you can use lr to cycle your tank, while curing your rock the only daraw back is it may take months to cure and cycle, but is efficient
3)to cure it you simply lput it in sw (ph alk and salt should all be in line), add circulation and let go it's natural course, monitoer your ammonia, it will go up and when it starts to fall, your nitrItes will go up and then start to fall, when they reach 0, you are done, do a 20% water change and you have cured it, this is also what you will do in cycling your tank, add bacteria(shrimp or lr), monitor your water and do same, this is why you can cycle while curing, it is the same process
4)a dsb is a real good idea, your sand will become live from the life in the rock, all ls is sand with live bacteria, you allso want pods and detrivores, most of which you will get with lr
5)imo: 50 lbs of lr, and a 3 to 4 inch sand bed
6)get a skimmer and powerheads these with lr and a dsb, will be sufficient filtration for your system, you don't really need a "filter" per say, the lr, dsb and good circulation will creeate a biological filter for your system
7)lighting will greatly depend on your system goals, do you want fo, fowlr, corals or what all corals are not even the same, some have verey strict requirements on the type of lighting you will need, if it is fo, standard flourescent lightw will be good enough, beyond that anyone would be just guessing without more info
I don't typr, so please forgive the typos
HTH
