I thought you dont care about these sorts of things in the hobby. You are my idol for the LTFA method (and I am not kidding).

Not to mention bacteria of all sorts , these are a bio load often overlooked;)

lol! You're right, I don't really care, just thought it would be an interesting discussion. I'm looking at all kinds of skimmers that give different ratings based on bioload, and it occurred to me that there really is no measurable way to gauge this. Based on the thousands of responses, it's a tough question, or not many people are as curious as I :)

For me, get big skimmer, make big foam, remove big poop. Done job.

I read somewhere that skimmers, no matter how efficient will never completely remove all organics, there's a very small difference between the best & mediocre ones in that regard. I doubt that there'a 'formula' to measure bioload that will work consistently for any given person's tank. If a tank is overstocked & under maintained with respect to water changes, I doubt that even the best skimmer will keep up.

One would think that measuring nitrates & phosphates would provide some indication of whether one's bioload is exceeding maintenance or skimming performance. Or if one is battling algae issues. I'm stumped because if anything my bioload has decreased lately, hair algae issues I've had in the past are almost non existent at the moment, but I recently tested my water (after not having done so for many moons) and my nitrate reading was about the highest I can remember.... yet minimum algae issues & the critters including anemone & coral I have are doing well....

I think the best way is by food usage, more food the heavier the bioload, but this is complicated by natural occurring food in the tank, like algae that your tangs might eat and so on.

In the end though the only way to tell if your skimmer is big enough is to see if it is removing what it is supposed to by water quality tests. That's why traditionally we have always doubled the size of skimmer that we thought we needed.

Steve

The problem with doubling up your skimmer size is the removal of beneficial organism. This has been shown in tanks that use zeo or like methods.

what organisms are we removing exactly compared to their reproduction rate? are we talking bacteria?

ratings on skimmers vary so do we go by pump specs or by manufacture recommendations, and whats considered a healthy population to begin with and does age of tank play a factor?

im sure skimming removes lots of things including some beneficial bacteria , metals , phosphates and organics etc. alot of these id rather pull out then save , the amount of beneficial bacteria ratio to the reproduction rates it would take a long time to see an effect or complete wipe out, things added to the tank are going to replenish some of these organisms over time as well as the food sources and carbon we add, and new bacterias are always willing to take the role of old ones.

so overall ive always doubled my skimmer , i also carbon dose and rely on my skimmers performance to make it as effcient as it can be since i dont run filter socks or any other way of removing it.

ive often tied new systems into mine so its nice to have a skimmer that can handle a larger water volume and ive also been known to upgrade.
over the years ive had more issues of skimmers not performing rather then performing to well :)

I do agree with you. Just stating based on threads on zeovit forum. It's always been suggested to turn off skimmer while dosing and for few hours after. Also zeo claims that using needle wheel skimmer are to efficient. Pulling out the dosed bacteria. I do run a skimmer that's more than 2x the capacity of my tank, but only run it 16 hours a day.

yes there is , and which is one of the reasons i always dose down stream from the skimmer.

Another consideration is when setting up a new tank it skims a ton and as the tank matures the amount that is skimmed becomes less and less and that tends to throw a lot of reefers for a loop this can also be said for putting a new skimmer in an established tank

But in the grand scheme of things I honestly don't think there is an accurate way to measure bio load it just comes down to user preference and past experience IMO