used 24G tank, should I cycle? w/ fish

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by taemo

A friend moved to BC and she decided not to bring her aquarium so she gave it to me.
The tank is a Nano Cube 24G tank, she used to have about 10lbs of dead rock, 2 hermit crabs, 1 wrasse and 3 clowns but the wrasse died days before I could pick up the tank. The clowns are 1"-2" big

As soon I moved the tank to our house I decided to clean the tank because the glass, rocks and bottom were full of algae.
I made the mistake of rinsing the glass, bio-balls and ceramic ring bag with tap water, will this be fine or should I replace them?
Also I noticed that it didn't have an activated carbon bag, should I get one and which one?
Fortunately I didn't touch the mechanical sponge nor spray it with tap water, can I clean and re-use it or should I buy a new one?

I re-used about 16 gallon of old water, the rest was fresh saltwater; I replaced the old rock with 20lbs of live rock, put the 2 crabs and 3 clowns back in the tank.
The next day we did some test and reading were:
7.8 pH
0.25 ammonia
0.25 nitrite

I know I should give the tank a proper cycle but I didn't have a choice since the tank came with 3 clowns already, how do I start the cycle? Should I put a piece of raw shrimp?
I'm on day 4 with the tank and want to do this right and not harm or worse kill the 3 clowns.
We'll be on vacation from April 4-15 and don't want to come back with 3 dead clowns and rock.
What should I do?

If I have to ask someone to take care of the 3 clowns for now, anyone in Calgary that can do that?

here's how the tank looks right now

You don't.need to add any thing since you added the lr you added organic matter. Hence the ammonia

Let.it be do some water changes once a week. Once ammonia is gone should be good to add fish. Just watch for a spike in ammonia

As for.the cleaning of substrate. You can add prodibio startup and this will help greatly
The sponge should be cleaned weekly. (I took mine out and filled media basket with hydroten
As for the carbon bag. Buy a new one and a jar if chemipure
It's carbon gfo and what looks to be di resin in it. Put it in bag
I've with this tank and no skimmer tgey key is water changes.
My wife's tank that I look after grows z+p and lps just fine