Am I royally messing this up

[Keachj06]

If your salt was freshly mixed this could be the problem. While it may look like all your salt has dissolved when you mix it, it can actually take a day or 2 for it to all be in an equilibrium.
I do agree that there is no reason to run lights or a skimmer during your cycle unless you used live rocks.

So when I add bacteria such as ammonia or live rock start running the skimmer or just leave it off until the tank cycles for a few weeks

 

[Keachj06]

So I may or may not have read the procedure for finding alkalinity correctly we are sitting at 11.0 today lol thanks for all the input though

 

[Keachj06]

SG is still at 1.026

 

[Brew12]

So when I add bacteria such as ammonia or live rock start running the skimmer or just leave it off until the tank cycles for a few weeks

You have a few choices to cycle a tank but every method requires 2 things. Bacteria and food.

The fastest way to get bacteria into a tank is by using live rock or buying a bacteria product like Stability, Dr Tims One and Only, or Biospira. There is nitrifying bacteria on just about everything including floating in the air so even if you don't add any of the above you can still cycle your tank. It just takes longer.

My favorite source of food to feed the bacteria is pure ammonia. I do recommend Dr Tims ammonia chloride because it is pure and comes with dosing instructions.
The next best route imo is to get an uncooked frozen shrimp from the grocery store an throw it in your aquarium, or use fish food and regularly add it to your tank you like are feeding fish. Downside here is that you never really know how much ammonia the food or shrimp is breaking down into.
The old fashioned way and the one I hate seeing used is to add a damsel or 2 to the tank and hope that they can survive long enough for the tank to cycle.

 

[FishLover01]

You can use regular household ammonia to cycle a tank. Just need to make sure it is pure ammonia with no additives. Shake the bottle and if it bubbles, don't buy it. Keep ammonia level in the tank at 4ppm. If you get ammonia level way higher than this, it can cause the cycle to stall. Having high ammonia levels can kill all the good bacteria you're trying to create during the cycle.

 

[Lovemycj7]

I think faulty test result for alk. There is no reason for your alk to spike to that level when you weren't dosing anything. You're off to a good start. Recommend you get in the habit of doing research and asking questions like you are doing before adding livestock. You'll be thankful you did when you avoid losses of fish and coral and having to catch fish down the road. Also look into a qt setup. If you use the I don't have space or money to get qt setup you're in for slot of pain. Good luck and welcome!