Let's talk about bio load.
 

So looking at skimmers, most are rated for different volumes at different bioloads.
How do we measure that? I mean, quantitatively, what's a medium bio load? Or heavy? Or medium light?
Compared to what?

How do you gauge your bioload?

Good question. I think I have a heavy bit load with 7 fish in my tank but there all small basslets and two fire fish. So is that low compared to wrasses or tangs

No idea. And that's weird, cause I usually have an answer, even if I make it up :)

This time I got nuthin' lol

I think I have a medium(ish) load. On the light side, but I feed heavy. Sort that one out!

Maybe bit load should be based on amount of food you use.

Do we weight it per gallon?

I have a 6" angel, a 4" tang, 8 Bartlett's Anthias (2"), a Leopard wrasse about 4 inches, 2 clowns and another anthias (Lyretail). 50 frags. 3 LPS various sizes. 40 snails. 2 abalone. Some sand snails.

107g of water, 50 pounds of rock. Give or take.

We call this medium? Heavy? Light? I dunno. I picked medium because it's in the middle :)

I guess a pound of food is a pound of poop regardless of how many fish

No, would depend on age of fish (is fish growing still?), temp of water (effect on metabolism, etc). A pound in is not a pound out. And sand beds complicate the equation. What gets retained in the sand vs bare bottom. What gets removed as solids in a filter sock if you use one?

This is complicated :)

I guess you would have to find a way to calculate the time it takes your tank to process a days waste. Having a number value to the amount of organics in the water column. You could turn a day into sections. 4 hours to process the waste is low 8 hour medium and so on.



But I'm not tgat kind of smart

Pretty confusing subject! I kinda thought bio load depends on how many fish you have. Sea_Horse Fanatic or Anthony as some of us know him has a 160 g DT and lots of fish and I know he considers it heavy bio load, hopefully he'll see this thread and chime in and shed some light for us. :confused:

I consider my bioload medium and the skimmer I have is "realistically rated (TM)" for 250gal or 180gal heavy bioload. It seems to do ok and I've never not had algae (except for that one time) so it does as well as I expect it to.

I generally gauge my bioload on fish type and size. Tangs eat a lot and crap a lot and I have a "enough" of them so I'd consider myself medium bioload leaning towards heavy-ish.

Interesting question. I also am interested in how people relate their bioload to skimmer size and "over skimming". Is this even possible?