For what's its worth, in my semi-informed opinion, dosing Acropower, and similar products, is like dosing anything else in that sense that, if your tank has an existing deficiency that it will address, it may help. However, if your growth/color is not is limited by a lack of amino acids (or their building blocks), you likely won't notice any significant improvement in coral health or coloration by dosing them. I kind of think of aminos as 'easy to use nutrients' for the corals (and potentially other less desirable stuff). In a heavily stocked and fed system, you might not notice anything beyond a greater propensity for bad things to grow (algae, dinos, cyano). In a lightly stocked/fed system, at or bordering on an ULNS type system, the corals might really appreciate the aminos since they're bordering on starvation. I'm sure there are others with much better informed opinions however.
I've used Acropower and Brightwell's amino product. My main tank had a bad case of Brook, wiping out most fish, with the survivors being taken out for treatment, essentially going from heavy stocking/feeding to no stocking with very limited feeding. My corals got paler and my alk and calc consumption slowed, telling me growth was slowing. I started adding aminos and color got better and alk and calc consumption started to rebound. Since then, I've added back fish and now have a semi-heavy fish/food load. At this point, I'm not really convinced dosing aminos is doing much for me, although I continue to do it sporadically at a reduced rate. I have some cyano and some algae, both of which seem to be improving with time. i also dose carbon, perhaps unnecessarily complicating the picture.
Big picture, reef (and planted tank) keeping is about taking a box of water, adding light and nutrients, and getting the things you want to grow to thrive while limited the growth of the unwanted things like algae that also appreciate the light/nutrients.
Matt
