Bio load ??????

[agreeive?fish]

Ok i see lots of posts saying you bio load is ...what ever the answer is

so my question is how do you figure the amount of bio load fish "a" is going to put on system "a" compared to what fish "b" would put on system "a" compared to what fish "a" or fish "b" would put on system "b"

[Fizz71]

It's a combination of size and eating habits. Bigger fisher, bigger bioload and vice versa. Then you have to look at how much live rock you have to handle it.

IMO...It's all a guessing game. People here can speak from experience, but I doubt seriously anybody can give you a solid "math" answer since there are too many variables.

What I look for is nitrates...since most of my systems are large enough and have plenty of live rock I never really worry about ammonia from having too many fish, what I look for is the nitrate going up faster than the dsb/fuge/water changes can keep it down.

[IslandCrow]

There is not cut and dry answer for this. . .no inches of fish per gallon rule or really and objective way to measure bioload. It all comes down to experience and personal opinion. I have 2 small to medium fish in my 46g and consider that right about where I want my bioload to be. Other people have 5 or 6 fish and consider it manageable. Although I can't give you a rule, it really comes down to one question: Can the given filtration (biological, mechanical & chemical) effectively process the ammonia and nutrients introduced into the tank from feeding and fish waste?

Of course, bioload isn't the whole story. I could probably pack 20 fish into my tank and maintain my bioload if I had a big enough sump and skimmer. The obvious problem is that you're going to have some very unhappy fish.

[WaterKeeper]

The other question is what is the bioload of the inverts in a system? You see tanks all the time with wall to wall corals but they do generate wastes that the system needs to handle. The first sign that a system is starting to become over taxed is when nuisance algae start to appear. Sometimes just running a phosphate removal product can cure that but is serves as a warning that the tank's processing ability is nearing its limits.