ammonia in a recently moved tank

I picked up a nice 90 reef setup on monday and after my last fiasco with moving a tank I have all the corals and fish at my LFS while this tank settles down. This is the 3rd day it has been running and I am getting a mild ammonia spike (1.0).

There was a deep sand bed in the fuge which I left in tact and only disturbed it minimally, but all the sand in the tank was scooped out and into buckets then dumped back in the tank when I got it home.

Anyone know about how long I can expect this mini cycle to last? I am taking up a bunch of real estate in my LFS's tanks with all the corals and fish and would really like to get them a ball park figure on when the tank might be ready.

~Will.

 

IMO, this is what is causing the spike and can likely increase the whole cycle thing.

I would have either left the sand be (short move) or thrown it out and got fresh, I would advise against such drastic disturbing of substrate as removing it and putting it back...

If I were in your position at this point, I would scoop it back out and add fresh...

Likely to get a different opinion on that, but it's what I'd do.

 

you'll have to reintroduce all your fish one by one to let the bacteria load build up.... so those fish will be there for a few weeks if not a month depending on how much bioload you have sitting there at the fish store.

the nh3 spike should be going away within 24-48 hours of seeing it (atleast this is what i have in my notes from when i started my tank it took that long for my initial Nh3 spike to diminish)

i dunno, every tanks a bit different so i guess its hard to put a number on it...

 

Im fine with adding back the fish slowly, I just really need to get my corals out of that shop. There taking up a lot of space, and the local patrons are drooling all over the shops glass. The tank did not have a skimmer hooked up when I picked it up, the old owner was just using a fliter sock and a decent sized refugium . . . I'm thinking about adding my SWC cone skimmer to the mix. Would that help speed things alone, or would it be better to let it cook?

~Will.

 

oh, and the tank is all scaped and i'm kinda happy with it as is, I would really prefer to not tear everything out to remove the sand.

~Will.

 

i used this product and it works just as stated. 24 hour cycle
StartSmart
and will be using it again to start the new tank. i was amazed that it actually does as it says. i monitored my tank readings daily and i never had a ammonia or nitrite spike. i did see nitrates after a bit that told me the tank was cycled.