never feeding a tank?

I've got a 20-long tank that's about 6 months old. I've been keeping fish for about 12 years now, with this being my third saltwater attempt. The first two didn't go very well, but this one is going great. I have undergravel filters, running on powerheads, one of the powerheads flowing to a fluid-sand filter, and a Emperor 280 for filteration. Anyway, in the tank I've got about 25lbs of live rock, 2 turbos, 1 astrea snail (sp?), 5 blue legged hermies, 1 emerald crab, and 1 firefish. I have about 20 species of bugs/starfish/worms/tubeworms/featherdusters/shrimpies/tiny snails/etc. that came with the liverock. I'd been slowly building the tank up, and all my levels are perfect at the moment, and I have almost no algae issues.
Now the question. I'm essentially lazy, and want to do the least additional work to this tank as possible. I feel like the biosphere I've made is providing everyone with good food, I've had no fish losses, the hermies are molting constantly, and the firefish which came from the LPS with a slightly sunken belly is now looking nice and healthy. In this time, I've feed a total of 4 crushed up food pellets from my cichlid tank to this tank, mainly because it is fun to rile the tank up. Since everything seems to be going so well, can I keep not feeding the tank?

 

Quick thought, I would say no. Sooner or later the pods or whatever they are eating will diminish, unless you supply the tank or the display can breed enough to sustain the creatures that consume them. However, some fish are not equipped to scavenge the pods or whatever. A technique, which was told to me, is to only feed the tank once or twice a week. As explained to me, in the wild fish only find food randomly and indiscriminately. We overfeed as a general rule because of what we think should be done.

 

unclejed said it all, nothing else to add to this.

 

Please dont take this the wrong way, but from what you have written so far, this only leads me to believe that you have formed a great recipe for disaster.


Luna

 

if its not broke don't fix it. watch your fis close and as long as they stay looking healthy I don't see why you would need to change it.

 

If your version of "doing as little as possible" involves not feeding the fish and letting them fend for themselves in your 20 gallon tank then maybe a reef tank is not for you. Trust me, you could never duplicate 100% a biotope to sustain everything you have listed in something as small as a 20 gallon tank.

~Will.