Be honest...

[Walter White]

My first tank I think it was maybe only two weeks before I started adding coral and the only reason I was able to wait that long was because I was getting married in Maui lol. The corals added consisted mostly of zoas, euphilia, and a toadstool leather I think I lost at least 90% of what i had added in the first 3 months. I want to say only the toadstool made it long term. That tank eventually went on to be a pretty sweet sps dominated mixed reef after about 3 years.

My second tank I was much smarter with and cured live rock for 3 months before setting up the tank then allowed the tank to cycle for about 6 weeks before adding zoas and anemones. The zoos did very well and I still have many of them today in large colonies but I ended up losing some of the news for some unknown reason.

My third tank I allowed the base rock to cure for an entire year. I cured the decorative rock for 4 months then ran the tank for another 4-5 months slowly adding fish until coraline started to really take off before adding any corals which was actually just a few weeks ago, all spa mostly acros. So far everything that I have added is doing really well and a least a few appear to be starting to encrust the frag plugs I mounted them to.

 

[SynDen]

My third tank I allowed the base rock to cure for an entire year. I cured the decorative rock for 4 months then ran the tank for another 4-5 months slowly adding fish until coraline started to really take off before adding any corals which was actually just a few weeks ago, all spa mostly acros. So far everything that I have added is doing really well and a least a few appear to be starting to encrust the frag plugs I mounted them to.

This is what I am doing with my big tank. Im still at least a year or more out from having the tank even ordered, but I have a 75g of cured rock already, and the pieces of my scape that are already done, will be curing in the next month or so.

My first tank though came with corals and live rocks. It started with a scarlet hermit, a few mushroom corals, GSP and toadstools, all of which I still have. The rock in my main display and most of the rock in my 75g curing tank have never been dry though, so that helped, but it was well over a year before I really started adding corals to my tank. Mainly that was due to a nasty GHA bloom I had at the 6 month mark that took another 6 months to get under control.
Either way once the tank passed the year mark it noticeably began to become more alive. Up until that point it was difficult to keep balanced enough to grow anything. Now after more then 3 years, its growth is almost out of control.