Tank maturity question..

[smhray]

So my 13.5 Evo was 5 months old but then I took out the rock, bleached, and re started it. The sand bed, mechanical filtration sponge, bio filter, and carbon filter were all left untouched. I just tested the water and the nitrogen cycle is still working in my tank. I was just wondering if anyone would be able to give any input on how mature my tank would technically be by now after the rock restart.

 

[Bfragale]

It’s hard to know how mature your tank is with this info. Was it stocked before? Is it stocked now?
How did you test cycle? Have you added ammonia and tested to see if tank uptakes it and converts to po4 or no3? What’s current perameters ? Have you added any “bottled quick start” products?

Sounds like Some* of your beneficial filtration was left alone, so the tank may still convert nutrients but not at its full potential. Which to me means if you add a bio load it may not be able to keep up until the rocks and stuff reestablish the beneficial bacteria. Maybe a small bio load may be ok, but couldn’t say for sure.
But I’m no expert lol. Just my thoughts.

 

[HB AL]

I would act like day 1 from the day you bleached all your rock. Why did ya do that?

 

[smhray]

It had two clownfish and around 20 corals but these were small frags and about half of the frags were zoas.
I tested the cycle by just testing ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate for three days and seeing what happened and I also put a shrimp in there first day.
Current parameters is everything at zero and oh is around 8.3 but I used API test kit for this.
I have fritzyme 9 which is a quick start but I haven’t dosed it yet.
Also, the tank was completely blacked out for about two weeks, put cardboard around it, straight after I removed the rocks and started curing process.

 

[smhray]

I would act like day 1 from the day you bleached all your rock. Why did ya do that?

Even if the sand bed and everything else went untouched? When I blacked it out I dosed a little bit of stability to help the bacteria overtake all the space.
Restarted rock because there were a crazy amount of hydroids which were bothering my corals, I also wanted a fresh start on the aqua scape because this was my first tank and a was very inexperienced when I did the rock, and I also had a Dino problem so I thought might as well move all my livestock and restart the tank with all my new experience and confidence.

 

[Bfragale]

Even if the sand bed and everything else went untouched? When I blacked it out I dosed a little bit of stability to help the bacteria overtake all the space.
Restarted rock because there were a crazy amount of hydroids which were bothering my corals, I also wanted a fresh start on the aqua scape because this was my first tank and a was very inexperienced when I did the rock, and I also had a Dino problem so I thought might as well move all my livestock and restart the tank with all my new experience and confidence.

But if you kept sand
then it wasn’t a complete restart...

“Everything at 0” doesn’t really make sense. If so then:
Alkalinity is 0?
Magnesium is 0?
Calcium is 0?
Ph- you say 8.3
Temp 0?
Salinity 0?
Po4 0?
Nitrate 0?

“Then that’s yer’ problem rite therr “

without enough information our guess is as good as yours..

 

[HB AL]

IMO good live rock, I have Fiji and some other very porous stuff is the backbone of my reef tank. I have a lot of rock in my tank and more in the sump along with a skimmer, that’s all the filtration I have and my mixed reef tank is full of corals and fish. If I were you I would seed your bleached rock with some good live rock and add some of that kickstart bacteria to quicken the process of getting your rock back to thriving and doing what it does for tanks. Here’s a pic of my overly stocked reef with tons of corals and fish.