I can't wait for this reef to mature....

Gregg @ ADP · Apr 26, 2019

To me, a tank is mature when the focus shifts from growing coral to always having to figure out what to do with all the coral you have.

Or, when you get a new piece in, and you have to embark on a civil engineering project to find a place to put it.

vetteguy53081 · Apr 26, 2019

The term " Mature" and " cycled " are often mixed up.
Cycling is a winding road running for many miles until the denitrifying process stabilizes while mature is a point where you meet no challenges and can expect specimens to thrive well without concern of parameters, and very few to no disturbances in the system.
Mature is a confidence that you can add a $200 fish to the tank and have No concern about its' ability to thrive

Saveafish · Apr 26, 2019

Paul B said:
I couldn't answer any of the choices because I really don't know. But I would define it as when nothing ever dies except from old age.
I am also hoping for that for myself.

I too checked other. I'm with @Paul B on this. With the aquarium being a small eco system it's always changing and growing. In a world of change like this. When things just pass from old age it has hit its maturity level.

Rick.45cal · Apr 26, 2019

Mature is when all your corals outgrow your tank

Sallstrom · Apr 26, 2019

When you don’t see the rocks for all the corals.

High ICP · Apr 26, 2019

2 years

saintsreturn · Apr 26, 2019

I chose other for this reason. Mature to me means stable. One that is free of unnatural swings in perimeters and can sustain itself through various issues (you pick the issue). My tank is mature when the only thing i need to do is scrape the glass, empty the skimmer cup, top off the water and feed. Anything outside of that (besides pruning and tinkering) means we are messing with the stability, usually.

This stability means fish and corals should live long and happy lives.

Matt Carden · Apr 26, 2019

beaslbob said:
On second thought. LOL

Some hard algaes like halimedia will survive in the display. I was using caulerpa and chaeto which were eagerly attacked by the tangs.

Additionally, those hard algaes from what I hear need very similar conditions to hard corals. So they can be an indicator if hard corals would do well except for things like copper which affect the corals but not the macro algaes.

my .02

I had Halimeda on my live rock from gulfliverock.com but I didn't know what it was til now! Thank you. I'll have to check to see if any made it through my ugly phaseseses?

Oscaror · Apr 26, 2019

A mature reef is a combination of all of these things. Lots of corals, all grown to the point where you can't see the live rock anymore. Corals are all healthy and colorful, and params are stable.

Hitman · Apr 27, 2019

Peace River said:
I consider a mature reef tank to be a fully functioning ecosystem.

I agree with this.

Paul B · Apr 27, 2019

When the owner is a Geezer so old he has no memory of starting the thing. ;Wacky

fish farmer · Apr 27, 2019

I believe maturity comes from coral growth, especially if things are taking up lots of real estate and needs constant fragging.

I could somewhat believe in some stability in water quality, but I don't consider keeping temperature/salinity stable a sign of a mature tank. That is a sign of various controllers/safe guards put in place.

mitch91175 · Apr 28, 2019

Totally depends on your definition of the word "mature". So let's start with the actual definition of the word "mature":

Now that's out of the way, lol. So from that we can agree to say that a tank is "mature" when we consider our tank to be fully grown. But what is a fully grown tank? Is that one where you have absolutely no space available and have no other choice but to trim frequently? I'd say that is a fully "mature" tank.

But you also have to think about at what point in time does each of us consider our tanks "mature". I'd say my tank is "mature" since it has been running for around 5 years. Been through a few iterations of itself, but overall I can add anything to the tank and have a great chance of survival and growth. Everything in the tank isn't grown so much to where I need to trim, but the tank itself is in a mature state; stable parameters and too much Coralline algae. So much that there are layers in places. Also know that it is mature with being the "coral sitter" for someone until his tank is ready.

With that being said I chose when you have Coralline algae, but in a pretty decent amount. By that time you should have a lot of bio-diversity in the tank. If not then something , at least to me, has gone wrong.