Seachem martrixs vs marine pure votes opinions

Leggmantn2015 · Feb 8, 2016

I was just curious what everyone uses and your opinions. Both have great reviews but matrixs is alot cheaper.

cee · Feb 8, 2016

I don't use either and frankly don't know what either product is used for.

Leggmantn2015 · Feb 8, 2016

Its bilogical filtration media that can be used instead of having excessive amounts of live rock. It has extremely high surface area to colinize bacteria for ammonia nitrite and even reduce nitrates. Use it in you sump and or a reactor.

Leggmantn2015 · Feb 8, 2016

Its bilogical filtration media that can be used instead of having excessive amounts of live rock. It has extremely high surface area to colinize bacteria for ammonia nitrite and even reduce nitrates. Use it in you sump and or a reactor.

Rob.D · Feb 8, 2016

I think they are both the same exact thing......just different brand.

Reeflogic · Feb 8, 2016

I use both. In order to get anaerobic growing and reducing nitrates, they need to have pretty low flow, unless you go with the blocks just sitting in your sump. I have the spheres in my sump and I'm giving matrix a try in a BRS reactor with about 30-50 gph flow. I started using them because I had minimal aquascape and barebottom, for awhile. I recently added more rock and some larger crushed coral / shell mix, because I had zip for microfauna. In the 2 months that I have been running the matrix in a low flow reactor, I haven't noticed any nitrates, but I have also been more religious with my water changes. So I can't say they are reducing nitrates or not, but I'll keep them online because they certainly aren't hurting anything.

I have had the spheres in my system for roughly 2 years, but I only purchased one box and not sure that they actually ever reduced nitrates, to any significant degree. What I love about the spheres is, when I set up a new tank I grab 3 or 4 and toss in the new tank, instant cycled... But, you could get that from rock or live sand. To each his own, I guess. I've seen some pretty nice tanks running Marine Pure blocks, using them for nitrate reduction, so in theory, they do work.

Reeflogic · Feb 14, 2016

Well, it's been around 9 weeks or so since I added the matrix in a BRS reactor. I have not done any water changes in 2 weeks and have not changed any other aspect of my tank. I'm feeding heavier than usual and more times per day, mostly LRS and what I've noticed in the last week or so, is that I can go several days without cleaning the glass and even then, it's minimal cleaning. Oops, I said I did not change anything else, I did add about 25 lbs. of a larger CC substrate around the same time, which probably doubled my available bacteria, along with the slow flow matrix.... So, I'm not sure if it's one or the other or a combination of both, but not cleaning glass daily has been a nice bonus.

Also, I completely forgot to pull out that Reef Octopus BP reactor and get back with you, are you still in the market for one or did you go another route? Sorry about that, I'm getting old and forget stuff!

ReefFrenzy · Feb 14, 2016

Reeflogic said:
I'm feeding heavier than usual and more times per day, mostly LRS and what I've noticed in the last week or so, is that I can go several days without cleaning the glass and even then, it's minimal cleaning.

^THAT is an observation which many commercial service and maintenance companies report when switching clients over to LRS. Thank you for using our foods and we go to great extent to keep them clean to reduce excess nutrients in the water.