newbie, think i was given bad advice....

[Mamakitty]

i have a 5 sided corner tank. it is 45 gals. i had fw fish in it, but just a few. i decided to put them in my spare ten gallon and make the big one a salt water tank. i was told by a fish loving friend that since this tank was fully cycled and had great parameters i could just change it over. so i put the salt in the current water (after removing the fish obviously) , then my sand and 6.5 lbs of live rock. i did this on thursday evening. i then added some critters on sat. just some hermit crabs and a camelback shrimp. now from what i'm reading on some of these sites i may still have to cycle my tank? i did alot of reading on sw tanks before doing this, but i think i may have erred in listening to this friend about start up. did i screw up already?? will my critters die? or will it be ok?

help for a stupid newbie please!

 

[KahluaZzZ]

hmm...you shouldn't keep your water...and yeah your inverts may suffer.
The water itself doesn't have the power to keep ammonia down. You need live rock and sand/substrate cured before you put something in your tank. Did you bought cured or uncured LR ? Even cured you might have ammonia spikes and inverts are less tolerant than fishies. Do you know someone who has a sw tank to take care of your inverts while your tank cycle ?
6.5 pounds isn't enough to keep a lot of creatures...getting more rock would be great and it's better to get the amount you need than buying like 5 pounds next month and 3 pounds the other month.. every time you add your rock there can be die-off resulting in ammonia ( ex: dead critters rotting in the rock ). The more rock you have, the more your system will be able to handle parameters variations.
BTW i hope you know that after the first saltmix in the tank, you shouldn't do this in your main tank...do it like ..in a container and let it sit for a day or so...i personaly do it with a powerhead to help the salt dissolve.
I think you might like "the new marine aquarium" by M.Paletta or "the conscientious marine aquarist" by Bob Fenner. 2 great books when you start..very cool FAQ and setups.

 

[Limi310]

I don't have much experience with SW, but do know that generally the beneficial bacteria that lives in FW is not the same as SW, so you can't just switch over from no salt to full marine and have your biofilter stay intact. What is your salinity right now with the salt?
Chances are, if you have full marine conditions your FW beneficial bacteria has died off or is dying and yes, you will 'cycle' again.

It also doesn't seem like a good idea to me to just convert a FW tank over to SW by adding salt.

Other then saying that, I don't really have any advice for you - I'll let the 'salties' respond since they have WAY more experience with this stuff.