Cycling a tank without salt??

[Johorocks]

So i have a 130gal in my house that i got a few months ago. Upon getting it home i put the sand and rock in it and filled it up with water.at the time i didnt have cash left for salt so i put a few powerheads in to move the water. I just purchased salt today and have not added it yet. My question is since my tank has been full for two months now( no salt) has the nitrogen cycle taken its course? If so will adding salt affect it?

[Yanni]

I am no lab geek by any means but i would think you gonna have to let it settle a few weeks before its ready for anything living.

[Kungfukid]

your tank could be ready for Fresh water fish, do some testing just to confirm.

As for salt water fish, you might need to start the cycle over again.

[dannyp02908]

im not really sure on this either, but i think the bacteria may be different. I hope your rock and sand were dry. If they were live, they are likely not anymore.

[Johorocks]

Its for a reef tank. The rock and sand were dry

[beckbrass]

Need to re-start the cycle. If it was not salt anything that's alive in it will be dead when you add salt and the cycle will start over. Good luck

[Kungfukid]

so what made you started a reef tank without salt?
So you wasted 2 months on electricity for running a tank.
Not sure the water in the tank is even any good either. You might be better off to start all over again with fresh mixed water to avoid any organic break down and other bad stuffs in the water

[pech29]

Not to mention, a skimmer doesn't work with fresh water.

[John K]

The bacteria is different so you will be starting from scratch in terms of traditional cycling. That said, depending on the source dry rock frequently has a lot of dead organics that need to basically rot out, so the 2 months in freshwater might not have been such a waste.

From here you'll want to mix in the salt (fine to add it to the tank since there is no livestock in there, but in the future you will need to mix your saltwater in a seperate container), and if you can add a small chunck of live rock and or live sand to seed the tank. This way it will be able to cycle much quicker than if you just wait for nature to take it's course.

Also, did you use tap water to fill the tank initially? If so, it would be advisable to drain it and refill with RODI water. If you did start with RODI, I would test the existing water for nitrate and phosphate, if you have elevated levels of eiter (especially phosphate) from whatever might have rotted out of the rock, it would be advisable to do a %100 water change to get rid of that waste. (It'll cost you more time, effort and supplies to get rid of that pollution than it will to just replace the water).

*if you're not framiliar with "RODI", that means reverse osmosis deionized water. That is pretty much standard for reef tanks, otherwise you'll most likely be importing all sorts of pollutants that you don't want. If you don't have a RODI filter system yet most good LFSs sell water for reasonable rates.

[afsportsguy000]

RODI is key, I did not use RODI and it was horrible, with RODI water things went super smooth and still going smooth to this day