Dez
There was no rhyme or reasoning to the timing. Never tested for nitrates or phosphates except once at the LFS. Basically got the cooked rock in the system as soon as possible. For a month the rock was in the dark, with a Tunze 6080 until I got around to adding the T5 actinics. Then added some sand. After a couple weeks I added a few snails and another month later or so I bought some fish (3 yellow tangs - not really recommended as first fish ... but whatever). Then a couple weeks later I got around to hooking up the halides. An 1hr for a few days and then slowing increasing the duration. I was expecting an algae breakout when the halides were added but it never happened. I just took my time as the tank was growing coraline algae and I was more patient than tempted by the livestock the LFS had. Had what I think were a bad case of diatoms (stringy) but they are subsiding now.
Now I remember why I was so patient. My Euro-Reef I bought new in 2006 and never hooked up until March 2009 had a terrible noisy GEN-X pump and I had to wait over a month for the $300 Eheim pump upgrade to arrive.
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