Please note that in the tables below publicly stated critcism is in red colored text, while my responses are in white, blue and green colored text.

With regards to referring to this filtration concept as a new filtration system, the following comments have been made:

What is new about placing rocks within your sumps and allowing sponges to grow on them ? I have a sump in my garage and there are some nice sponges growing on them.

It is true that placing live reef rock within dark sumps is currently a common practice within the Untied States. This concept however was not common when I talked about it during the MACNA Conference of 1998 in Long Beach California. In fact 4 years ago the idea of placing good reef rocks in a sump was viewed as a waste. The rocks turn white and all the coralline dies. When I talked about dark live rock sumps in 1998, a few were being utilized by reef wholesale facilites, some reef retail shops and also a few aquarists. Like most others I stumbled upon the viability of sponges by accident and not by design. My suggestion that living sponges could potentially be utilized to replace the protein skimmer was an original idea. What I have also been doing since then is heavily research sponges and other cryptic organisms. I have been setting up many experimental tanks and testing the performance of various system designs. So the current zonal filtration philosophy has taken the original sponge sump concept and greatly expanded upon it. Anyone who claims to be have been utilizing this concept for years, who still has a protein skimmer attached to their system, is not running this new filtration idea. By researching, examining and experimenting with these sponge based natural filtration concepts, I have developed a completly natural based filtration system that has no protien skimmer, has no extra algal filtration, has no sediment plenum and requires no deep sand beds. The key to fully implementing the system is properly integrating the different zones. A sponge sump is not a very efficient cryptic zone. It is a semi-exposed to semi-cryptic zone that experiences large influxes of particulate matter. That is not an efficient way to utilize cryptic sponges. A filter feeder zone has also not been properly setup within these atypical sumps. So the fact that sponges are growing within the lower sections of your reefs or on the rocks you dumped into your sump, is not an indication that you have properly setup this new zonal filtration system. It is an indication however that cryptic and semi-cryptic organisms are even trying to grow and perform their natural filtration duties within marginal habitats.

With regards to the cryptic zone being a new concept, the following comment has been made:

I also have dark low current areas within my reef where detritus collects. Its nice to now know what to call these areas (cryptic zones) but whats new about them ?

The lower dark areas of your typical reef aquarium are not cryptic zones. Especially if detritus is collecting there and building up. Cryptic zones do not recieve an influx of detritus or particulate matter. That type of organic matter is handled within the filter feeder zone and does not enter the cryptic zone. Aquarists need to realize that these cryptic zones are meant to reproduce the internal cracks, crevices and deeply sheltered areas within the tropical reef platform. Large particulate matter deposits are not supposed to be entering these cryptic areas. Again, the proper integration of the zones is what most of the original research I have performed is concerned with.

With regards to referring to this filtration concept as an entire new filtration method, the following comment has been made:

There really is not much new here. Sponges filter the water and I have sponges on some of my rocks. This should not be called a new filtration method.

When you read the books I have written on this subject, you will see that integrating the zones is not an easy task. With properly setup zones, the organisms within the zones will proliferate and can experience phenomenal growth rates. There are also many new types of cryptic and semi-cryptic organisms that can be more adequately maintained within proper zones. Examining the functioning of a self-contained three zone horizontal EG system could be an enlightening experience for these critics.