How long to wait ....

[Riddler05]

I spent the last 6 months planning my tank and stocking it with a handful of fishes and dozens of coral frags and now comes the hard part. My parameters are stable, I do weekly water changes, skim wet, run GFO and Activated Cargon as well as a biopellet reactor. Some of the best tanks on here started out Barron and as the corals grew so did the beauty of the system. So now all that is left for me is letting my Barron reef grow and mature to produce beautiful colonies.

So my question is once a tank is well stocked and the parameters are stable how long does it take for your reef to get that mature grown in look which makes them so beautiful? And for those reef junkies like me, how do you keep from fiddling with your system, sometimes making it better most of the time probably making it worse.

 

[tyler1503]

That really depends on the individual tank. One tank might take 6 months and another tank with the same equipment on the same settings and the same husbandry techniques etc. may take a year or more. Some tanks never have that natural look with the sponge growth, coralline algae etc.
Most people seem to consider the one year mark as the "mature/ing" age of a new tank. I'm not sure why, it's just what they say. I personally don't see it that way, but it seems to be the rule of thumb.