cycling question

[reefer654321]

I have a question on cycling my tank, i'll let ya know where i'm at. I filled up my tank and had live sand and live rock in the tank for a month, recently found out my well water wasnt good, high in nitrates, i bought a ro/di system and changed out the water with ro/di water.
I took the live rock out to use epo putty on it to aquascape it. During the aquascaping the live rock was out of the water for about 10 hours the first day till the epoxy hardened and back in the tank overnight, the second night to finish it was out of the water for about the same amount of time.
I added bio-lift and night out and put about 5 tiny table shrimp in the tank to start the ammonia addition, i have just a hang on filter and a heater running now with the sump and protein skimmer to finish hooking up this weekend, its been about 2 days since it was "started over".
I need some genearl guidelines on how to finish the cycling process.
Thanks.

[CarmieJo]

What are your parameters now?

When LR is shipped it is wrapped in wet newspaper and shipped otherwise "dry". Depending on how it is shipped it may be out of the water for several days. So I believe that you probably had some die off from it being out of the water but you wouldn't have killed it all off.

For now, you need to monitor the parameters. When you see ammonia and nitrite at zero you will know that the initial cycle is complete. I'd add a couple hardy corals first and then a few inverts like snails, hermits, emerald crabs, etc. (Talk to us about species before buying.) I'm not a fan of buying a packaged clean up crew. You don't need all those cleaners in a brand new tank. Once your tank is stable with the corals and inverts you can think about adding a hardy fish. IMO you should never add damsels. They are cheap but they are vicious. The longer you can stand to have a fishless tank the better it will be in the long run.

[reefer654321]

i bought the live rock at the pet place and brought it right home and it was in the tank for about a month before i started the aquascaping. Ammonia is at zero, nitrite very low, and nitrates are at zero thanks to the ro/di water.
I get get coral this soon? I assume mushrrom coral is hardy from what i read, i may get some emerald crabs soon and nassarius snails to help get the cycle started?
i plan on getting some fish in a few months, its a 29 gal tank, so i wanted 2 clown fish , and some goby's and blennies.

[reefer654321]

forgot to remind that the live rock was in the tank for a month with the well water, and i drained the tank water, rinsed the sand in salt/rodi water and replaced, then did the aquascaping.

[CarmieJo]

If you rinsed the sand and rocks, a good idea considering the well water problem, you probably need to cycle again. I'd drop a shrimp in as a challenge and see what happens. (Put in in a woman's nylon stocking so it is easy to get out.) What are your parameters?

Zoanthids, mushrooms, xenia are all hardy soft corals. LPS like plate corals, torch or frogspawn, candy canes are also good choices. I'd hold off on adding anything though until you are sure that you are cycled.

[Stevej72]

Carmie has you covered here, just remembers to be patient and monitor your water. The hardest thing for me to learn was "don't mess with it" it seems the less I do to disturb my tank the happier it is.