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The advantage of Siporax or Bio-Glass or lava rock is a lot of surface area per unit volume compared to the "non-fouling" choices of bioballs and similiar biofiltration media.
The disadvantage for the high surface area medias such as Siporax or Bio-Glass or lava rock or the bakki shower media as JR so competently points out is that any of these choices will eventually foul most of the surface area, requiring some kind of "fix" to the fouling issue. The fouling becomes sufficient to warrant maintenance perhaps once every year or two.
I don't have any real issue with the "Muriatic acid surface regeneration process" for my high surface area per unit volume media choices, because I do not regenerate more than 25% of the total filtration system of a pond at a time. Meaning I have several trickle towers in service for the koi ponds, and take only one of them off line at a time for maintenance tasks.
As time goes on in my hobby, I choose bioballs more often than the other choices, because, like JR, I get tired of routine repetitive maintenance tasks, even if these tasks are only once every year or two. Okay, it takes a lot more filtration volume for the bioballs for the same biofiltration result, but they don't foul, and are very light to handle for any maintenance task.
If you are still reading this thread, JR, I am still curious to know how many of what size koi you keep in your 7500 gallon pond with its ~40% water change per week you described earlier? Filtration issues are stocking density dependent to a high degree, and I was trying to compare results some way or another. It would appear you run a quite large water exchange compared to my practices (5 to 10% exchange per week currently). If I exchanged 40% of the water per week, and kept less than 30 large koi in my 3500 gallon indoor pond system, I suspect I would need a lot less biofiltration capacity than I am running to achieve the same water quality.
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