resuscitating an old setup

[gobygobester]

I recently lost my reef tank due to hurricane Irma. Everything that was in it died and it stayed in stagnant water for two weeks until I was allowed back home. 

Since the end of September I kept my live rock in a bucket of water at room temperature and have done a few water changes but it didn’t have circulation. 

I just set up the tank and some of the rocks looked white ish but some looked like normal live rocks. They did stink a bit. 

I tested the water and had 0 ammonia, .25 ppm of nitrites and 10 ppm of nitrates.

my question is; are these test results indicative of a cycle going on or should I add ammonia in to start the cycle? 

I did replace the sand with clean live sand. 

[Subsea]

Your tank is cycled with respect to nitrification.  I would expect the normal progression of algae as tank cycles in other areas of maturity.

[gobygobester]

2 hours ago, Subsea said:

Your tank is cycled with respect to nitrification.  I would expect the normal progression of algae as tank cycles in other areas of maturity.

Thanks for the quick reply! 

[OPtasia]

Agreed. You're in the middle/end portion of a rock cycle. If you can add a powerhead or another pump to the tank for circulation, it'd probably help speed along the process. I probably wouldn't start re-populating the tank with corals until you had zeroes in all three ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.

 

[gobygobester]

I was going to wait for zeros, I was just surprised the readings were so low given the condition the rocks were in.

[blasterman]

Add a bit of ammonia.

 

Test to make sure if ammonia is elevated.

 

Test again in 12 hours. If ammonia isn't back to normal you aren't cycled.

[Clown79]

Adding ammonia to liverock will kill any beneficial critters that are living.

 

Once ammonia and nitrite have processed, you should be good to go without needing to add ammonia.

 

 

[Nola Bear]

Man! I’m still dealing with Irma, too!  Good luck with your rebuild~

[brandon429]

goby

 

 

neat thread

 

 

you are posting about something we make large threads over

 

 

all your bac remain, the only thing that mattered was hydration and it is wise to reuse, show how strong your biosystem is.

 

post pics

 

lets restore

 

all you have to do is put the rocks in uber clean water buckets and change out the water for a while with very high circulation, or bubbling, some kind of dislodging mechanism constant for a while.

 

 

your bac remained, you do not have to recycle you don't have to feed ammonia, the decay has already done that.

 

we w make a new sandbed, place all back on top of it, if you even want one.

 

 

do what we do in tank restoration threads, post pics we turn em out clean n sharp

 

 

[brandon429]

the chief move in your fixing is the liberation of stored organics, not hard. peroxide actually helps a little bit there in a neat way.