In my own experience, I believe people are indeed relaying the information incorrectly.
I've used zeovit, other biopellets, nitrate sponges, phosphate sponges, and finally I'm to ecobak plus(multiple carbon sourced pellet; think vsv) and biodigest. I saw the original validity with carbon dosing but ignored the morons on the internet who say it's counter productive.
All I can say is ecobak plus and biodigest together makes me want to open a freakin frag store. lol It's become stupid easy to keep a reef tank, and I mean keep it clean and acceptable for most anything.
The trick?
Well, for one, it is entirely possible to strip the water column with ANY form of carbon dosing. Too much of a change in too short of time = tissue necrosis.
One day I cleaned out a whole crap ton of stuff/medias, cleaned out the entirely biopellet reactor, put in new Poly-Filter, and added 1ml of biodigest.
Know what happened? In 27 hours, the phosphates went from .22 to .05.
Most other corals were not affected, but one had a small bit of necrosis the size of the end of a pencil eraser.
Now of course before I would have probably left things alone, let the phosphate level fall more because we "all need zero phosphates because they're the devil!"
Whatever. Never listening to that hogwash again.
I proceeded to ignore the phosphate level, and feed everyday, multiple times a day, with nutricell. (planktonic food)
I saw the phosphates bounce between .05 to .15. Completely too high right?
Well the necrosis healed itself in 6 days.
I've tried many combo's between carbon dosing and gfo, other medias etc. Now I only use poly-filter and gac. Most of the time I just rinse off the gac and put it back in. The poly I actually change out since it absorbs metals etc. The biopellet reactor is recirculating, again filled with Ecobak Plus. Usually if I want to reseed the reactor I use the biodigest, otherwise I can go 1-2 months without needing it.
Also, one big thing imo, I have the bp reactor output to skimmer input, and bp reactor input from skimmer output. So essentially it's a recirc reactor, recirculating via the skimmer, and THEN it gets to the tank. This was an original thought I had to liimit the amount of bacteria that escapes/grows in the tank and it's worked perfectly.
Anyways, back to the people relaying info correctly. I have found that feeding coral food is necessary. People say they never feed their corals, in the case of softies sure, but LPS and SPS I've found under the circumstances of carbon dosing, pretty much require it or they'll fade/stn.
Also, the zero phosphate thing, I think that's crap. When I actually had zero phosphates, again, nothing was happy, nothing grew, and a few stn'd. I was unbelievably ticked.
Now that I've not even worried about it, let it stay between .05 and .15-.2 I have zero issues. Including zero algae, the algae on the back glass is whitening some too. The only thing I can figure is inorganic phosphates are near zero and the .05-.22 readings are actually bacteria that die and come apart in the test vial.(organic phosphates)
Anyways, more and more as time goes by I think the whole 'all your corals need are light' and 'you don't have to broadcast feed the corals or spot feed' and 'you need zero phosphates and nitrates' is the biggest bits of misinformation in the hobby.
I think people are reading this info from everywhere because it's been fairly mainstream at a couple forums, and then they turn around and wonder why their corals are having necrosis events.
Also the don't add what you can test. That's bull. You can't test for a lot, but that doesn't mean a few drops will hurt, as long as you keep up with water changes. Been using the red sea coral color program with reef energy. Been doing so for a few weeks now, and in addition to the constant everyday feedings, the corals have never looked this amazing.
Took me a few years to compile this info, but I can't believe I bought into it and chased numbers while things were having necrosis issues. All because I thought it was the best information from some smart people. Nope, just the folks concerned about popularity contests. It's why I appreciate the euro forums, no American ego's.
