Are Bio Pellets Reactors Becoming Abandoned?

[Europhyllia]

One of the things I have noticed is that a lot of people here have put the reactors on line on an established tank. I wonder what the difference would be if it was started from day one on a new tank?

I started my Caribbean reef with the pellet reactor online from the start. The nice thing was that I never had that hair algae bloom that new tanks usually get.
I did get a cyano bloom big enough to make me feel guilty every time I tease Allan about his. I'd say the avoidance of hair algae at the start was the only difference though.
I added the pellets when my old 125g was already running for quite some time and I added the pellets to the 215 before anything was in it and in the long run it didn't make much difference. Keep in mind even once your system is set up it changes over time. It's not a static environment.

One thing nobody mentioned here is the money. For my amount of feeding I do on a 215 gallon tank I can buy a years worth of Purigen,deNitrate and Phosguard for about $90 versus the $300 I spent for 1 year of pellets.

Here are a few more questions to consider (and some possible answers although I do not claim to have answers to everything ;) ):

* are pellets the only way to reduce N&P?
No (consider macro algae, mangroves, nitrate reactors based on sulfur or carbon/coil, nitrate absorbing media, media and substrate using anaerobic areas for nitrate absorbtion, etc.)

* are pellets the most convenient way to reduce N&P?
Maybe for some but not for everybody

* is 0 nitrate better than 5 ppm or 10 ppm or 20 ppm?
Maybe. Maybe not

* are pellets the most cost effective way to reduce N&P?
Probably not