Project -- Reef tank w/out feeding.

[ckreef]

Ok here it is -- for some background:

7 gal Minibow
Aqua Clear 200 HOB w/ surface skimmer attachment
Carbon Only in the HOB changed every other week (to help w/ chemical warfare problems)
50 watt heater
2 x 28 watt 50/50 PC's from Hellolights

1 1/2" SD sand
10 lbs or so Carribean LR
With LR and sand approx 6 gals of H2O

approx 30 different type of corals -- over 35 individual specimens --- this works out to be approx 5 - 6 corals per gallon --- comparing a tank w/ 2 corals per gallon is apples to oranges -- these corals are a mix of softies, LPS and SPS

a few various critters -- snails ect...

No Crabs
No Fish

1 gal water change every 7 -14 days as tank needs cleaning. (regular IO salt)
RO water for makeup
Kent Tech CB --- 2 ml part A and 2 ml part B every morning.

No other addatives
No feeding of anything

Tank has been up and running for 2 months. Most corals seem to be doing good w/ noticable growth. There have been three corals that have died. This was very early after their introduction into the Minibow so there demise can be attributed to something other than feeding.

There are critters in the LR which produce reef snow. There is a healthy POD population since there are no fish consuming them.

I will continue running this tank as is. There is only room for a few more coral additions and they will happen as I collect corals that will seem to work.

My website in my sig has a complete livestock listing. The pics on the website are a little old. I will get new pics posted to my website in a week or two when parents visit w/ digital camera.

[MegaDeTH]

But without a control, the test would only prove it could be done, it wouldnt give an indication on growth or health impact.

[ckreef]

That is true.

I do not believe my growth will be as good under PC's as it would be if under MH w/ a skimmer and feeding.

For me this is to prove it can be done w/ some degree of success not necessarily the most optimum growth.

In that small of a tank w/ that many corals if you had explosive growth you would be trimming back evey week (something I'm not interested in doing).

Besides many corals grow much faster under our artifical system then they ever would in the wild and hence also have a much weeker coral skeleton. Borneman actually went over that point for a few min at our lecture last year.

And it's not that the corals are being starved -- It a more balanced system -- one that I don't have to feed.

[MegaDeTH]

>Besides many corals grow much faster under our artifical system then they ever would in the wild and hence also have a much weeker coral skeleton. Borneman actually went over that point for a few min at our lecture last year.

I dont agree with this without some more data to back it up, there's other reasons the skeletons grow weaker in our systems.

I've got a 5g minibow that I feed heavily, I've done 2 water changes sense I set it up back in april/may however, the corals I keep are different from yours, I have mostly softies..

[Schwaggs]

I wanted to point out that I am not an advocate of NEVER feeding your system. I only pointed out on the original thread that I have a 55 gallon system that I never feed. Let me describe the system.

I have been running this system for over 3 years. About 6 months ago, it suffered a setback when I moved to Atlanta. All the mushrooms, zoos and bristle worms were "cooked" when the temporary heater in their holding bucket stuck on. I am in the process of rebuilding the system. Before the setback, it was a thriving system.

The inhabitants were/are shrooms, zoos, hermits, an emerald crab, and snails. I had a clown fish in it for a couple years but not for the last year. It doesn't have a sump and uses a single maxjet 1200 for circulation and a Prizm skimmer as the only filter. Lighting is 1 40W Actinic and 1 40W full spectrum light. Before the mishap, the system grew shrooms, zoos, coraline algea and sponges like crazy. It isn't flashy but the coraline and shrooms are quite a beautiful sight.

The point I am trying to make is that feeding a system is a matter of goals that you have for the system. If you want to keep a "Crest Environmet" system, you will need to feed more than other areas of the reef. If you want to see fast growth, you probably need to feed more food (but be prepaired to remove more waste). Just as the reefer has choices to make on inhabitants, lighting, water movement, nutrient export, they have a choice to make on the amount and type of food introduced. My 55 gallon system uses "home grown" food.

BTW, I didn't set out to create a non feeding system. The 55 was setup as a holding tank for some live rock I aquired. Over the months that the rock was in holding, I noticed the rock was thriving in the low light, low current environment. It is at that point when I decided to maintain it as it's own system.