as far as teh longevity of the pellets, I cannot tell you that as my experience with them is limited. I do knowthey are consumed by teh bacteria as it processes the nitrates and phosphates. I was getting a large ammt of Cyano growth due to phosphates in my tank. they were consistently testing at .03ppm with a hannah meter. I was looking for a place to blame that on and felt teh pellets were not working so I took them off and rinsed them and left them to dry. in the meantime, the cyano didnt solve and my phosphates went up to .13ppm on the next test a few days later. it was then that I decided to give the pellets one more shot. they were working, but not to their full effectiveness as my previous reactor didnt have enough flow to properly feed them.
that all has changed with this new reactor. I can now blow them thru the roof if I want to, but can also adjust them to a nice churn. The discharge from the reactor is 100% plumbed into the body of my Skimmer so I should be able to skim off the excess bacteria properly. I am going on about a week setup time so far. I am seeding with MB7 (all I have available to me now) but after next weekend, i will have a different strain of bacteria to add that will hopefully increase the pellet effectiveness.
as for the location of the reactor, it is just above my sump on a shelf. In theory, I wont get algae growth in teh reactor as it will not have any nitrates and phosphates for them to feed from. If I do get this, I plan to get some window tint and darken the body of the reactor.
