When is the tank mature enough?

[Joe Batt]

I recently restarted my tank after a slow painful crash, from zero using dry rock, a shallow sand bed. The rock was cycled for 6 weeks till it tested no ammonia or nitrite. Also, phosphates testing around 0.05 and decreasing.

I added my old fish and lots of Fritz 900 yet still had a small cycle, but fortunately, that only lasted a few days. The tank is pure Triton with a nice refugium running now also.

This tank is intended to be mainly montipora, chalices and acropora.

The question is how mature/long do you wait to add corals of the various types? ie LPS SPS. My last tank was my first and was running for 6 months with just a few softies before I progressed to more demanding hard corals, plus it was live rock initially. Some 3 years later it slowly crashed and hence I am back to square one.

 

[O'l Salty]

Once your parameters are in control you can add coral. At least that's the way I have done it.