Thanks for graphs, can we see trendlines with each lighting period is highlighted? So afaik balanced tanks looks sleek and clean while diverse ones are much dirty with some nasty patches here and there.Idea 3: Almost none of the 12 tank starting schemes acheived average (>50 percentile) Diversity anytime during the test period weeks 2 to 15. Only one system even got close, and it took 15 weeks to get to that result. None of the others got over 34 percentile at any point, with most systems spending the whole 15 weeks around and below 10th percentile.
But in Balance score, more than half the systems achieved an average ( >50 percentile) balance score by the end of the 15 week period. A third (4/12) systems got there by the 2nd measurement at week 4.
This happened in systems both with strong initial material influences (Coral, Indo live rock) and some with no intentional seed material at all (dry rock/sand). These very different starting materials were able to achieve a balance that looked like a typical reef tank in this time frame.
If we say this criteria is a goal - to have our major bacterial components look like the rest of the reef hobby - then this goal is achievable in a fairly short time regardless of starting material. Quite an optimistic takeaway.
But if we say diversity matching a hobby tank is the goal - then this is a long slog - even with carefully chosen material, and no guarantees that the system gets there at all. Not so rosy a scenario.
One thing both views (diversity and balance) show is that there are quantifiable answers to a question that we often pose. Cycling takes a 1-2 weeks, but we feel like tank "maturity" takes much longer - on the scale of months. But we don't have good answers too what we think happens between 2 weeks and a few months. One of those answers is bacterial succession is clearly a much slower process than a couple of weeks.
This is a snapshot of all 4 microbiome tests over 15 weeks on all 12 tanks... No tanks are totally settled across any time frame within this 15 week period. Some are in more flux than others.
A personal experience from one of my setups, i used brand new pack live sand with rocks from a newly broken down established tank and i had the nastiest stages ever for months (with 3ppm PO4 right from the start).
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