I am a newb still so take what I say with a grain of salt... I know in fish farming applications where there are lots of fish in a small area (even saltwater) the wet dry (bio balls/screens etc) principles are still considered a useful and practical form of biological filtration.
As a new reefer my take on it is that a small reef tank has significantly different requirements and often is "smaller" so less tolerance for waste buildup if your filter media gets gooey.
I still use bio balls for my fresh water cichlid setup and if I ever do a fowler I will probably still use them in addition to live rock. Even in my Cichlid tank I rinse the media on occasion to take out detridice that the floss doesnt catch.
FWIW
Palmer
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