Cycling with well established live rock / sand

[thomb]

I'm 7 days into a newly set up tank (tank details and earlier pictures were posted an intro).
I got the rock 100lbs and about 40lbs of sand, several snails and hermit crabs from someone breaking down an established tank. My "instincts" are telling me everything's going really well

So far, yet to see any ammonia - is this to be expected?

Also, the guy I got the rock from gave me a coral that had bleached, it's appearance has really changed over the past few days - I'm seeing polyps (where before there was nothing) and some changing in color near the base (really hard to get a picture of this
This is from when I first set things up -the right hand side is where I'm seeing the change - here just looks like a skeleton...

Here is a shot from yesterday.

Wishful thinking that this will continue being this is a new setup?

 

[stingythingy45]

If the rock is from one tank to another,you may never see any ammonia.I did this when I upgraded from a 20L to a 55 gallon.I waited a couple weeks just to make sure.
As far as the coral,it's anybodies guess.Some corals are pretty tough and will bounce back,some wont.But showing polps like that is a good sign.