Have reef tank, starting a new FO tank - How?

[fishnerd1]

I have a reef tank, but my freshwater fish in my 15 gal eclipse tank died. I think I want to run a Fish Only damsel tank in that (its in my bathroom).
How do you cycle a fish only tank? I have only done reef tanks and FO freshwater. Should I just take the water from my Reef tank and put it in the new tank? Will I still need to cycle the tank? I was thinking of putting the bio wheel in my reef tank's refugium for a week or so, then doing a big water change from my reef tank and just putting that water into my FO tank. Is this a good way to do a quick cycle? Is a cycle even necessary if I am using tank water from my other tank to start it off? Also, should I avoid all live rock and substrate? I wasthinking of getting 1 live rock to help cycle, but without a protien skimmer wont that be bad?
Thanks. I am going kind of in reverse, so I dont think the FO tank will be too hard to handle.

 

[leigh]

You still need to cycle it--using bio media and water is a good idea. you may have to toss in a cocktail shrimp just to kickstart things. You'll find FO requires more daily maintenance--all that live rock and sand is good for the filtration of course on the flip side it'll be far less $$ and with the lower lights you'll probably have less weird algae problems...you will have to very carefully watch overfeeding though as you no longer will have good methods to break down excess foods!

 

[fishnerd1]

I threw in a dead shrimp that had been in the freezer (the big kind you buy for food at the store). Its been floating around for a while. Should I just leave that in there for the duration of the cycle? At what point should I get the damsels? I dont want to kill them off, but I would not mind having them help with the cycle...

 

[leigh]

Leave the dead shrimp in there a few days...don't add damsels. Invest in a test kit--when ammonia and nitrite are both zero (and nitrate is very small) then you can add livestock. if you want damsels do it then--but any hardy fish will be fine. (this could take as little as a couple weeks or as long as 1-2 months)

 

[victor52]

don't add damsels as a form to cycle your tank its not nice