Low Nutrients and Success?

[dcombs44]

Hi all,

I've set up a 10 gallon zoanthid tank. It's been running empty for a couple months or so now.

I cycled the tank with table shrimp with a few chunks of rock from an old setup that I'd bleached and dried out.

Ammonia, Nitrates, and Nitrites have all been reading 0 for quite a while now, so I'm going to start adding zoa frags.

Here's my question. Since zoanthids are photosynthetic, can I have success without really feeding the tank? I've made it through the cycle with no signs of algae, and no cleaners. I've only been adding pieces of shrimp to keep the cycle going until I start stocking.

So, is there a real reason to feed this tank when the only inhabitant is a photosynthetic coral? I've kept zoas before but never really read up on the effects of feeding them meaty items vs. them thriving on simply energy from the internal algae.

If they can thrive by simply being well lighted and having pristine water parameters, I'd rather save the trouble of potential algae blooms and such, but I wasn't sure if that made sense.

 

[Mr. Microscope]

This is fine. I do the same in my 3 gallon. No fish, no feeding, zoas do great. But take the shrimp out of there. Not necessary beyond the initial cycle IMO.

 

[dcombs44]

Thanks.

Only reason I "shadow feed" is because I wasn't sure when I would start stocking the tank. Didn't want to have bacterial dieoff from having nothing for the cycle to feed off of.

The cycle is strong though, it will consume a full table shrimp in about a 2 days.

I'm ready to get a tank up and going again.