What is a "matured" reef tank?

[squibege]

As a brand new reefer (first ever tank is just starting to cycle kind of new) it's intimidating to know that no matter how much I research and pre-plan... something's not going to go the way I want it to. I want nems and starfish and would love to have a Mandarin in my tank- but the arbitrary rule telling me to wait six months gives a reality check as to how much this hobby takes time and that rushing things will take a toll on the living things in your tank. The last thing I want to do is make a creature in my care suffer due to incompetence on my part, so I will wait the six long months until I add more sensitive things. No matter what I read I don't have a working knowledge on what a 'mature tank' looks/ acts like/has, so the six month rule is the easiest to go off of

Seasoned reefers at least know what rules are made to be broken

[Dearth]

Originally Posted by squibege

Seasoned reefers at least know what rules are made to be broken

This quote has gotten us so called experienced reefers into a lot of trouble because we tend to know what our tanks are doing or what the parameters are doing and invariably we end up screwing something up because we know better but ignore the telltales it's happened to everybody at least once usually more we are our own worst enemies at times