[untamed]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

What would be the sign of my system overload with waste? I guess first sign would be nitrates?

Increasing nitrate level would be something to watch for. However, you're more likely to see an increase in algae/cyano before you get to measure that nitrate as they are very quick to take advantage of high nitrates. Nitrates are just the end product of the nitrification cycle that deals with everything that goes into the aquarium. (simplification ;-)

I don't think that high nitrates would define "overload". I would define "overload" as supplying so much food, so quickly, that your biological filtration cannot deal with it...Decaying food/waste produces more ammonia than your bacteria can quickly handle. Ammonia, kills rapidly and you produce MORE death and MORE waste and ammonia resulting in a spiral that takes down the entire tank. You overload the bacterial population you have.

My final thoughts on this are that you can generally feed as much as you want provided you build up the system to handle it. GRADUAL increases in feeding will be matched by increasing population of bacteria to deal with it. Once you have a robust population of bacterial to deal with large feedings the only downside to the large feedings is dealing with nitrates/algae.