I fail to see why people believe MB7 has to be dosed first (and at all) with biofuel but vodka can be dosed by itself and the needed bacteria can proliferate using the carbon source. biofuel serves the same purpose as vodka. wether MB7 helps is one thing. requiring it to work is another. If the carbon source is used to sustain the required bacteria numbers then the continual repeated dumping of MB7 cant be required to sustain bacteria numbers, at least not the ones responsible for directly binding nitrates/phosphates via consumption (may or may not help in some capacity). Hell if an abundance of carbon is required to sustain the select bacteria used to bind nitrates/phosphates then those strands of bacteria probably wont be in any significant numbers in a bottled bacteria product. I do believe MB7 may serve a purpose as a regular sludge buster bacteria used to break down organics but those have been readily available long before MB7 (in other words I dont think there is anything new or special about MB7 like people seem to think and people have always made the claims of clearer water and cleaner systems with these same type of products LONG before carbon dosing).
And yes I've used it by itself, before, during and after carbon dosing. matter of fact I had MB7 well before biofuel became available or I considered carbon dosing (or even knew brightwell was coming out with a carbon dosing system. MB7 was out well before all that. for kicks (since I have a big ole bottle) I use it alone in my biocube and with vodka in my main tank (until it runs out as I deem it not unneccesary).
As for biofuel vs vodka I've used both and comparatively if vodka is 80 proof (what I use), biofuel would be about 10 proof. After trying both (first vodka, then biofuel, then back to vodka again) of what I consider relatively extensively (been thru a full bottle of biofuel on a 30g) I believe biofuel works much slower, in my case caused NO cyno (while even a drop a day of vodka sprouts cyno), uses WAY more to accomplish the same thing and is probably safer ALL of which was probably intended (safer and lack of cyno are advantagious to you, taking longer and using more product is advantagious to brightwell). and while some have said MB7 has helped control cyno I cant say the same. perhaps it helps (I have not stopped using MB7 so perhaps I'd have tons of cyno without it but as stands I still get it. Not enough to concern me but small areas get it directly proportional to the amount or frequency of vodka dosed. not dosing vodka fixes it, dosing more MB7 does not).
