No cycle on tank transfer?

[syncro]

New 35g tank has been up and running for 1 week with ammonia, nitrite, nitrate remaining at zero.

Is is safe to transfer the snails and crabs to the new tank?

The tank has had half a frozen shrimp to try and induce a cycle. The tank contains sand that had been sitting in a bucket for a month with saltwater, heater and aerator and several doses of MicroBacter. Also added a few piles of sand from the established 5g.

[Myka]

Is there any rock in the tank? If it is just sand then you need to be very careful to add things to the tank slowly because the area for nitrifying bacteria to colonize is very small. You won't be able to keep much stock in there either because of the same reason.

[ScubaSteve]

If you are using new sand and were very careful during your transfer, there would be very little die off. If you moved stuff over and tried to cycle with shrimp you're going to have a cycle and you may see something yet. Does the shrimp look decayed (if you can still find it)?

In all my transfers I've usually been able to have small, unnoticeable cycles... Until this last one that is. With my last transfer I made th smoothest, issue free transfer ever. No cycle for almost a week and then BAM! that tank cycled hard! I lost almost all of my showpiece SPS colonies. Why? No idea.

So, be wary of a delayed cycle. I'd wait one more week. If you aren't seeing nitrates, it probably hasn't cycled.

[syncro]

Thanks for the advice Myka and ScubaSteve. I'll give it more time. The shrimp has started breaking into smaller parts. There is a bit of rock from the smaller tank in there already as well as some sand.