ready for fish?

HI, so i have a 220 litre tank, £200 worth of live rock and sand (built upover time, First few weeks i was throwing in a few flakes of fish food to get the cycle started then i bought some more rock which actually turned outto be a bunch of clams disguised which were pretty much dead after settling everything into my tank, i noticed that the shells opened up after a day and the insides were rotting i left them to help with the cycle now its all cleared up and i have quite a bit of algae on my glass but cant detect very much with my test kits would you say that the cycle is ow complete? its been a good 5 weeks or so.. Also does anybody have any idea how long this good bacteria lasts for when the ammonia source stops? i haven't got any fish yet and it will be another 2 or 3 weeks till i do as i am going on holiday soon, should i chuck in some shrimp or something for the meantime? as it was suggested to me that the fish food method wasn't the best way to go about it..
sorry for the long post but any help would be greatly appreciated
x

 

The clams are out now, right? Anyway just what are your parms?? If algae is still growing on glass, it is feeding on something. Before you leave do a water change (10%) put nothing in the tank intill you return, then check water parms before you do. As they say in this forum START SLOW, IT WILL GROW.

 

Agree with dees reef, don't add anything until you get back because sometimes bad things happen quickly and you want to be there to correct anything. I would recommend adding one or two damsel fish to get the tank started because they are very hardy and do not die easily. Be careful which kind you put in though, they can become aggressive and live a long time so you might be stuck with them for a while and they will "pick-on" new fish you add since you're working with a 50 gal. tank there.