How long to leave an oyster in the tank?

[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.

[daniella3d]

I have checked the ammonia today and it was zero. I guess my system can handle it then because everything is good, fishes are happy, corals are happy and polyps are wide open.

Still, I will try in the future to put a bit less flesh in the water and remove some of the oyster meat to feed my other fishes just to be on the safe side.

I bought some smaller oyster so there will be less meat to decay. Each time I remove the oyster though, it smell very good and does not smell like something rotting, even after 5 hours.

My liverock is Totoka and it is very porous, so I guess there are a lot of bacterias but I am aware that the number of bacterias will adjust slowly to the environment demand. A few days maybe? not sure. I will monitor this closely at the begining.

Originally Posted by untamed

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.