Cycle help

[popothemailman]

hey I have been cycling a 20gal tank. All i have done is put in my wet dry filter rated for a 55gal that was just taken out of my 80gal tank(obvious reasons). I also put a cup of live sand on the sand bed. This took place 1 week ago...i took it to the lfs and they tested the water and my ammonia went down to 0 the nitrites were pretty low and nitrate was building up(yeah the test was free...). They said i should be able to have fish in about a week or so. However i told them what i was cycling with and they told me to add some uncured lr to help cycle because my cycling method wasn't strong. so i bought 3 small pieces ($4 a lb fiji). my tank also i running a bakpak skimmer.

my questions are:

1. should i clean the rock(its got some black stuff but is relatively pretty clean already, even has some coralline)

2.will my tank cycle all over again

3. should i keep the skimmer on?

4.how long until it completes... yea my red sea test kit is going crazy so until i buy another the lfs free tests are all i got

 

[seaham358]

No need to clean the LR the die off is what is used to cycle the tank. Yes the tank should cycle again, if you ever had a real cycle. Skimmer on 24/7 while curing LR and after......
No one can say how long it will tank, it depends on how much die off you get from the LR, if the LR was cured a little it will be faster..If you have bacteria already in your tank it will be faster.... No way to tell thats why you should get some test kits, amm, nitrite and nitrate.