Update on my nitrate reduction efforts
I've been running the Vertex bio pellets for about 5 months now, and have seen my nitrates gradually go down from a high of 100 to 20 with my latest test just today. My tank looks much better now, with rocks and sand bed surfaces fairly clean, and hair algae has completely disappeared.
I have a very old mature 100g tank (10 years running), which I inherited when we bought the house about a year and a half ago. The tank was a real mess, overgrown with soft corals, lots of detritus everywhere, and full of all kinds of algae. I was scrubbing the rocks with a toothbrush and vacuuming the sand every 2nd week at least. It helped a bit, but my nitrates stayed consistently high, usually at least 80. I was changing 20% water monthly, and still do the same. I have quite a few fish (always hungry) and I feed them quite a bit, probably about 4 times a day, although small amounts at a time.
Amazingly, my fish and the corals didn't seem to mind the high nitrates, and always seemed quite happy. I had to do some major trimming of my corals, as they took over my whole tank right to the surface water. Now my fish have more room to swim, too. I dose a lot of calcium and alk buffer, too, to keep those parameters up.
My plan going forward is actually to reset this tank, and I am in the process of setting up a new 135g downstairs so I can transfer the fish and corals during. I am planning to go either bare bottom, or a very thin sand bed. Then I want to try my hand with more fancy corals like SPS and Zoas.
But I wanted to see if these bio pellets work, and would have to say they definitely do, judging from the results. I should mention that I also used MB7, and started off very gradually with the amount of bio pellets in my media reactor. That kept me from having any cyano or other undesirable effects from the bio pellets.
Anyway, just a FYI, in case anyone else is thinking of going this route.
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