Greetings, I’m making this thread at the request of some fellow reefers to discuss my method of maturing a reef tank rapidly. This is not a recommendation to follow anything what I say, just a discussion of my method. As most folks are aware there is a belief that as a tank matures it becomes easier to maintain, and certain organisms will do better. I don’t debate any of this, however I believe there are several things we can do to significantly accelerate this process.
This hobby in the last several years has focused on starting everything sterile as a way to prevent pests from getting into our aquariums. Unfortunately, nature needs competition to keep things in balance, and in a reef tank many of the organisms that we can’t see are involved in helping achieve this. Here’s a picture of a reef tank I started with this method on Jan 4th. The rock structure is dry real reef rock, and the zoa rock in the bottom is the only rock in the tank that came from an established aquarium. This tank has many intermediate to advanced SPS (rainbow acro, california tort, myagi tort, blue stag, WD, montiporas, etc)
Step #1
Run your tank empty with fresh water a week to make sure everything is dialed in and working well. We don’t want to need to adjust things once we go live.
Step #2
Fill your tank with rock sand and salt water at proper salinity. Raise temp to about 84 degrees. Add 5ml vinegar, and a dead chunk of shrimp, some GFO to your return, and bottle of bacteria (ones I use are BioSpira, Dr Tim’s, MB7, zeobak).
Increasing temperature helps the bacteria populate faster and the vinegar and shrimp provide a food source for them.
Step 3: After 3 days you can probably remove the shrimp and let tank sit for another 4 days. Measure your ammonia to make sure it’s 0.25 or less, you can then start adding live phytoplankton to the tank.
Live phytoplankton is a foundational food source for pods and filter feeders while helping to control nuisance algaes from taking hold. As a photosynthetic organism it also reduces co2 causing a rise in pH helping to promote calcification to occur.
Step 4: Continue adding phyto every day (around 15 ml) after a week you can seed the tank with pods from a source like Algae Barn. If you have a refugium now is a good time to add macro algae.
Step 5: A week after adding pods you can get another bottle of bacteria (I recommend a different type than what you used previously), and introduce your first fish. If you have any established live rock you intend to use now is the time to add it. If you have A skimmer turn it on 4 hours after you add the bacteria or run it without the cup. Make sure to bring temperature down to your normal temp and I usually remove the GFO now and put in Carbon.
Step 6: Continue on slowly introducing a fish every few days at a time.
Step 7: You should be close to adding a clean up crew around week 3. I recommend an urchin. If you don’t have a coralline source I recommend adding something that has it around this time, your cuc probably will have some on its shell.
Step 8: Week 4 - order an ICP test and make any required adjustments to the water, and start adding your coral.
Congratulations! You should now have a rapidly maturing reef tank that has a large amount of micro fauna and biological diversity that will lead to success.
This hobby in the last several years has focused on starting everything sterile as a way to prevent pests from getting into our aquariums. Unfortunately, nature needs competition to keep things in balance, and in a reef tank many of the organisms that we can’t see are involved in helping achieve this. Here’s a picture of a reef tank I started with this method on Jan 4th. The rock structure is dry real reef rock, and the zoa rock in the bottom is the only rock in the tank that came from an established aquarium. This tank has many intermediate to advanced SPS (rainbow acro, california tort, myagi tort, blue stag, WD, montiporas, etc)
Step #1
Run your tank empty with fresh water a week to make sure everything is dialed in and working well. We don’t want to need to adjust things once we go live.
Step #2
Fill your tank with rock sand and salt water at proper salinity. Raise temp to about 84 degrees. Add 5ml vinegar, and a dead chunk of shrimp, some GFO to your return, and bottle of bacteria (ones I use are BioSpira, Dr Tim’s, MB7, zeobak).
Increasing temperature helps the bacteria populate faster and the vinegar and shrimp provide a food source for them.
Step 3: After 3 days you can probably remove the shrimp and let tank sit for another 4 days. Measure your ammonia to make sure it’s 0.25 or less, you can then start adding live phytoplankton to the tank.
Live phytoplankton is a foundational food source for pods and filter feeders while helping to control nuisance algaes from taking hold. As a photosynthetic organism it also reduces co2 causing a rise in pH helping to promote calcification to occur.
Step 4: Continue adding phyto every day (around 15 ml) after a week you can seed the tank with pods from a source like Algae Barn. If you have a refugium now is a good time to add macro algae.
Step 5: A week after adding pods you can get another bottle of bacteria (I recommend a different type than what you used previously), and introduce your first fish. If you have any established live rock you intend to use now is the time to add it. If you have A skimmer turn it on 4 hours after you add the bacteria or run it without the cup. Make sure to bring temperature down to your normal temp and I usually remove the GFO now and put in Carbon.
Step 6: Continue on slowly introducing a fish every few days at a time.
Step 7: You should be close to adding a clean up crew around week 3. I recommend an urchin. If you don’t have a coralline source I recommend adding something that has it around this time, your cuc probably will have some on its shell.
Step 8: Week 4 - order an ICP test and make any required adjustments to the water, and start adding your coral.
Congratulations! You should now have a rapidly maturing reef tank that has a large amount of micro fauna and biological diversity that will lead to success.
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