Mature Reef Tank????

jasonm · Feb 9, 2012

I have been thinking a lot about what defines a mature reef tank. We all hear things like your tank must be running for a year to be mature, however what defines mature? I can appreciate the time thing but I believe if someone is attentive to detail when setting up and adding to the tank one can have what is considered a mature tank in a much shorter time. I am very interested to see how others define a mature reef tank. These are the things I think about when I consider a tank mature.

1) Stability of all water parameters.. Salinity, Calcium, Alk, etc
2) An active sand bed with bacteria and sand living organisms to consume waste and turn over the bed
3) Growth on live rock such as coralline algae, sponges, etc
4) Many actively producing pods and other fauna

I look forward to hearing other thoughts and view points as to what physically defines a mature tank...

Reef Breeders · Feb 9, 2012

Unless you add the neccessary organisms continually, it takes about a year to reach that point. It can be sped up a little by starting with mature lr, adding pods and sponges, keeping stable parameters, and starting with coral colonies instead of frags.

Dog Boy Dave · Feb 11, 2012

Not sure how you would define it but when ya see one you know it....

Dog Boy Dave · Feb 11, 2012

Honestly I think it takes at least five years for a tank to truly mature. The system above is about five years old. The corals were moved from an older system and many of the rocks and animals have been in my systems since 1990. If you look at these pics of the sump above 6 months ago compared to the video taken today you can see that the sump is still changing. Back then the Cheato out competed the chaulerpa. There were a few strands that have been languishing for the last ten years or so. As I have droped the nutrient level in the tank over the last couple of months the chaulerpa has gone crazy. In my experience the tanks goe through phases. The first phase is about a year to 18 months. At about 2 years a lot of low nuet. tanks often have an issue. Seems they really clean up at this point and the corals often begin to starve. Again at about 5 years the tanks tend to change and a lot of people have problems at this point. Some work through it it seems and some dont. I think the tanks always continue to change and one of our challanges is to watch the animals and try to track the processes as they occur. As the tank changes we may need to change our strategies that we are using to process and strip nutrients. I was kind of amazed a tthe difference in my sump when i looked at thes pictures. Even though i consider this tank "mature" it has never stoped changing.
02-11-2012_153224 - YouTube

m and m · Feb 11, 2012

Stans Tank by matsinger2, on Flickr

jasonm · Feb 12, 2012

I understand what you are saying and I see these thanks a full of corals that are growing and thriving. Honestly a tank filled with thriving corals can be accomplished in a matter of a couple to few months with the right amount of money for a ton of corals ;). I was really hoping someone would chime in with a theory or some form of system to say a tank is mature. Trust me I have had many mature tanks and seen many more so I know what one "looks" like for a lack of better terms. What I'm looking for is what are you looking at in your tank that is telling you that it is mature? I'm just trying to be a bit more scientific when saying x amount of time = x maturity because that has got to be a bogus system to define true maturity of a system and what it can take on...

Dog Boy Dave, you did make some good points about the tank changing around the 5 year mark though. I'm interested as what would happen around this time that would cause this to happen...