Okay, so a first preliminary report. I got the package and installed the new media on Tuesday. Before installation, ammonia & nitrite were 0 (seachem), nitrate was 4ppm & phosphate .16ppm (red sea pro). So I needed to replace the GFO anyway.
Couple notes: The xport bio looks like chunks of pumice, the xport NO3 looks like croutons made from ceramic beads and polymer bio beads. The xport PO4 looks like cubes of compressed GFO. Put all three in 800 micron filter bags as instructed. Ended up using more than directed, as the directions and common sense indicate that the water should not be able to bypass the media, and the directed amount would not be enough to create this effect. I rinsed all three thoroughly under tap water until the water ran clear (the PO4 took FOREVER) and then stacked them carefully in the filter compartment with ROX .08 downstream and a mechanical filter pad upstream. I DID NOT soak them with microbacter, partly because I don't have any, partly because I don't generally pre-innoculate my bio media before placement and I wanted to test how the media compared to my usual media not whether pre-innoculation helps. Instead I poured seachem stability at the "new tank" dose into the water steam going into the media and will repeat this dose daily for 7 days as I usually do with new biomedia.
Cautionary tale: about 10 minutes after installing the media the water turned orange and cloudy. This cleared within 24 hours and the fish and corals appear unaffected. In the future however, I will be adding a micro filtration pad downstream of this media as apparently it sheds a lot of particulates even when carefully rinsed.
So far the fish and corals are doing well and the water is sparklingly clear. I plan to run it for a couple months, and I will post back and let you know what I think at that point, but I thought I'd share what I had learned thus far.
