Hi, I have been thinking about this product a lot lately and going to try it in my new 400 gallon I've been working on and collecting stuff for 3 years lol. Hope to finally have it cycling by February.
I read that carbon dosing, like biopellets remove a 16/1 nitrate to phosphate ratio. So 16/1 is quite off balance, removing nitrate but not much phosphate. So that explains why people run GFO too to get phosphates down. I was looking at this Nopox and reading up on it so I added an important link below.
You might find this interesting. Today a 1000 ml bottle costs about $25. You can get 500ml for $13 right now at BRS. Or buy a larger container than those. In some cases, vodka costs more than that for a half pint and you can sip a little while your maintaining your tank, joke. But if you had to do 2ml per day of Nopox per 25 gallon that's not much work or expense for a product that removes nitrate and phosphate, and equally (Link below gives more info on how Napox works and removes both nitrate/phos).
Anyway, regarding cost, let's say you have a 200 gallon saltwater aquarium and you dosed 2ml a day per 25 gallons (According to the dosing instructions for a mixed reef) that is 8ml total to dose that 200 gallon system each day, and it should have the aquarium's nitrate and phosphates down between 2.5 ppm and 10 ppm, then you test and adjust the dose from there to get it where you want depending on if you're into SPS or what type of aquarium you run...
A 1000ml bottle divided by 8 ml = 125 (This means you have 125 doses in a bottle, so it will last about 4 months and a couple of days. The cost is 0.2 cents a day (not 2 cents but 0.2) = $25 for 125 days is really not expensive. But the bigger container you buy, the less it costs over time. I haven't tried Nopox yet but going to before I spend money on reactors and such. Yes sugar would be cheaper, but consider that this NoPox product knocks out two birds with one stone but removing both (No3 and Po4-x).
A skimmer is a must have, to use with Napalm (I mean Nopox) as Red Sea says but also they say don't use a UV, but that's more money saved. But imagine all the money saved by not having to buy reactors, refill gfo, carbon, biopellets, buy tons of rock/media, dozens of expensive other media. You don't have to buy the Marine Pure bricks or the Xport No3 bricks or deal with the mess of growing Chaeto in a refugium and saving the cost by cutting down on many water changes that also cost di resin for your RODI water system, salt, canister filters and I could go on and on.
It seems to me, although I haven't tried it yet and I have been reading with an obsession about how to remove nitrates and phosphates cheap and easy (just like most of us in the hobby have), that this might be a great way to go when I get my 400 gallon setup. They also recommend using trace elements and reef energy to support the NoPox and your system balance.
The link below shows it has been scientifically tested and I would feel more confident in using it than risking what might happen dosing various carbon sources like sugar, vinegar, vodka because they come with a risk of crashing the tank biological filtration and where when using those carbon sources, one has to make an extra effort to remove phosphates in addition at another cost.
Most the time I'm not lazy but good God there's plenty of daily maintenance as it is in this hobby with cleaning filters and I feel like I'm water changing my arse off with the 4 aquariums I have. Why 4? Because some fish I like aren't compatible. We all want better, quicker, easier options, as long as it's healthy, and this stuff looks pretty good from what I've read so far. No I don't work for Red Sea but excited about this product and how cheap and easy it is. I don't have to mix things. The only thing that might be good to get is a doser to divide those drops out evenly through a 24 hour period. I'm not saying I won't have rock or a bio bricks in my sump as I still would want a place for the bacteria to grow but the aquarium can have some room for good flow and not be stacks and stacks of rock that can look like big mess imo.
Great Article by Red Sea on NoPox for those interested:
https://www.redseafish.com/blog/nitrate-phosphate-reduction-via-carbon-dosing/