TIME---why it matters.

[Sk8r]

It's a big temptation to look at a series of hurdles to overcome, this many weeks to condition rock, this long to wait for a cycle, gee! now I can have fish!.......but just a moment, here...

Why the time? And once you understand that 'why', everything will make more sense. You're waiting on the equivalent of bacteria-sex. Which THEY do by growing fat and splitting in half. They fatten on nutrients. But they can only fatten so fast.

So they spread across the sandbed and across the surface of the rock. But if you look at that situation with a microscope, you'll see a lot of space yet to fill. Even solid-looking rock has pores, and certainly your sandbed is full of spaces. And that's all bacteria-habitat. That's the other part of the growth of bacteria: Depth. How deep. How filled are those spaces. That rock of yours, if properly conditioned, is wet right down to its heart. And where water goes, bacteria go. And eat and breed.

A 'mature' tank has bacteria saturating the sandbed and the rock, and floating around in the water. A lot of bacteria. A fairly large fish could demise in there, and between the 'cleanup crew' and the bacteria, even if it was stuck under the rockwork (they always seem to) it will be gone---literally gone---by morning. Not even the bones findable. That's what we can call a 'hot' biology in that tank. It is so hot it digests any thing: leftover food, fish poo, or that missing fish, and you'll scarcely see the ammonia spike. Which is a good thing, because ammonia, while food for some bacteria, is absolutely lethal to your fish and such at extremely low levels.

So how do you get your tank to this state of affairs, where it's practically bulletproof? Time. And careful stepping-up the food level from one fish, to two fish, to three fish, etc. If you start slow, never push that infant sandbed and new rock too fast, you will step your way toward that bulletproof tank. This means---don't rush to get fish. Start with inverts, who can eat and poo and feed the few bacteria of a new tank. Then step up to one fish, and not a big one. (Best always add your bully-inclined fish last anyway, so they don't think it's All Theirs.) Then you add maybe more cleanup crew and another fish, quarantining all the way. [Let me add here: quarantine your very first fish, because there is one form of life you Do Not Want in your infant sandbed: ich. A parasite that spends 3/4 of its life in the sandbed, between attacks on fishes. If it gets in there, it takes 72 fishless days to get rid of it, so take this seriously!!!!]

If you go slow at first, you can get to that state where your tank can handle a lot of life, and do it right.

[ToledoTang]

I like this, good info, thanks!

[hkgar]

My two rules of reefing:
1. Take things slow. Nothing good in reefing happens fast.
2. Take things slower than you thought rule 1 meant.