"Balling Method" for supplementing

[boozeman]

Hello Ralph, thank you for becomming a member of RS. I have long admired your system and am looking foward to the expansion you have planned.

[RalfP]

Thanks so much, boozeman.

Well, I asked, so it's not my fault, if I confuse you all with the following text.
Actually they were two which I wrote some time ago to get a discussion about Balling started. Seems that you already started it ;-).


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Hi all,
I'll try to describe what I understood of Hans-Werner Ballings "Balling Method".
Be warned!, there are lots of different flavours of this method used!
This text gets more and more technical further down.

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The basic idea is,
why messing around with a calcium reactor were you have problems to exactly dose how many calcium and how many hardness you add to the system.
So lets "simply" add the chemicals.
In the original Version of H.W. Balling there is no Mg mentioned but that works simular to the Ca-Method and is therefore used in combination.

for Ca Support add CaCl2*2H2O
for Mg Support add MgCl2*6H2O (there is also another version further down)
as Ca and Mg usage of the corals need HCO3 also add NaHCO3 which also keeps up the Hardness and regulates it.

With that chemicals you therefore can maintain your Ca/Mg and Carbonhardness and control them independently.
You can of course use different methods to supply it... Putting powders in the sump, use a measuring cylinder and put solutions of them into the water... or highly automatic, using a peristaltic dosing pump.

There of course is a downside...
When you add that chemicals you'll also add NaCl to the system as you can see if looking at the summformulars of them.
This would change the composition of the different salts in your water, normally only 70% or so of the salt in your water is NaCl.
To correct this "ion displacement" you have to add NaCl free seasalt, which one can buy from Tropic Marin or Preis or Grotech or FaunaMarin or maybe other vendors also, to compensate the displacement.

If you look at this all, you'll discover, that you also raise the spec. gravity of your water...
adding NaCl and adding NaCl free Salt means adding salt!
So you'll have to remove reefwater and add RO/DI water to correct that.
(Or use less concentrated seawater with your next waterchange).
(I remove water with a dosing pump, because method raises my s.g. quite fast)

The original version of Balling is even more complex, because it also mixes its own Traceelement solutions, which are added to the solutions of CaCl2 and MgCl2 and NaHCO3 and NaCl-free salt.
I don't use that elements, because its far too complex for me. I use Traceelements like
i think you all do... The ones one can buy and put in.
The good part of that would be that you dose elements according to your Ca-usage, which
could be in conjunction in your reef (but does not have to, because elements also simply disappear by falling out.)

If you understand the method and get used to it and have a dosing station, you'll only have to make 3-4 solutions in 14 days or so (depending on size of container for them).
And of course measure the parameters once a week (and maybe correct them).

Well there are some do's and don'ts like neverever put NaHCO3 together with the other chemicals in the water... wait between dosages (else they will react with each other).
Try to dose the NaHCO3 in the morning, because it uses CO2 and in the morning there is more avail, because the algae did not use it without light. (pH low).

Everyone seems to have his/her own flavour of Balling, like how much of which salt in how many gal water, with or without Strontium or traceelements etc.
Some trust in their 10% waterchange a week and not doing the part with the NaCl free salt. This is often called "Balling light".

Well, i have my own flavour too ;-)
I don't use the elements (I use others like you maybe do)
I also remove reefwater automatically because I have to add so much chemicals, that I don't want to raise my sg. by 2 points in the week and add RO/DI by levelcontroller.

Not Balling:
As I understand, there is an "old" version of adding Mg to the reef were you add MgCl2 and MgSO4 in a certain mix.
This is done because Sulfate(SO4) is the major part of saltcontent after Chlorid (Cl) and one tries to prevent the above mentioned ion displacement with that somehow.
So MgCl2 and MgSO4 addition found its way into the Balling Method.
But I already compensate the SO4 part by adding the NaCl-free Salt,
so I do not use the MgSO4 and use only MgCl2. Else i would create a displacement.

When getting started or later if to correct concentrations for whatever reason,
there are online-calculators around which tell you how much (gram) chemicals to add, to get the desired concentrations.

There are some calculators around, which could help. One is located at: Balling-light-method (engl.)
together with another flavour of the Balling method ;-).

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Fine, but what concentrations of the chemicals should be used?

NaHCO3 84 g/l
CaCl2*2H2O 73.5 g/l
CaCl2(whithout chrystalwater, as a replacement of the above) 55.5 g/l
MgCl2*6H2O 101.5 g/l
NaCl free salt 25 g/l

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Why I use such strange concentrations?
Thinking about chemical reactions of this kind, the number of molecules/ions is, whats interesting, not the gram of powder. To be able to calculate with those, you need the molecular weight of the chemicals.
It is given in gram/mol (a Mol is 6.023 * 10^23 particles (molecules).

NaHCO3
Having to start somewhere, NaHCO3 seems to be where to do it. NaHCO3 has a somewhat poor solutability in water, which is only 95.5 g/l at 20 degree centigrade).
To be able to solute it relatively easy, one has to reduce the amount of it a little to not hit the extremes.
Well, when thinking about moleculeweights etc., the idea of using 84 g/l, which is exactly 1 mol of NaHCO3 in one liter is quite obvious.
So concentration of NaHCO3 is 84 g/liter which is also 1 mol/liter.

CaCl2*2H2O or CaCl2 waterfree
To get a concentration here is relatively easy.
Wouldn't it be great to use the same volume of all the different solutions, when dosing?
Well, here you are: If reacting, one molecule of Ca uses two of HCO3.
Following this the concentration will have to be 0.5 mol/l, because that of NaHCO3 is 1 mol/l.
Half a mol of CaCl2*2H2O would be 73.5 g.
If useing CaCl2(waterfree), half a mol of that would be 55.5 g.

MgCl2*6H2O
hoping, that Mg also reacts with HCO3 like Ca does, the concentration may also be 0.5 mol/l.
Half a mol of MgCl2*6H2O would be 101.5 g.

NaCl free salt
to be able do dose simply the same amount, than that of the others, I'll calculate the concentration analog to that of the NaHCO3 solution.
The fact you have to know to do so is, that 70% of the salts in our oceans is NaCl.
NaCl's molweight is 58.44 g/mol.
If 70% is the NaCl, so the rest (30 %) is the NaCl-free salt.
58.44/70*30=25 gram (in one liter).

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The above solutions mean, that based on say your Ca addition, you can easily determine how much to dose.
dosing 10ml of the CaCl2*2H2O solution, means you'll have to dose also 10ml of the NaHCO3 and also 10ml of the NaCl-free salt.
Theoretically, MgCl2*6H2O is to be treated like CaCl2*2H2O, but reality shows, that Mg is not totally used as HCO3, so the NaHCO3 is a little different (volume).

Of course the solutions can be set up differently or dosed independently to hold/correct the different figures.
A good start to dose automatically is to know how much Ca and Mg - solution is to be dosed, add the volumes and use the resulting volume as NaHCO3 volume.
The NaCl free salt solution volume is the same as NaHCO3.

If doing larger corrections (initially) pls. dose in several days and dose Mg first, because Mg ions help to keep Ca ions in solution (not falling out).
Dosage of CaCl2 without NaHCO3 will raise Ca and reduce your KH (hardness) and dosage of NaHCO3 without CaCl2 will raise your KH."


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Thats it, thanks,
Ralf

[hma]

Because the concentration of the chemicals basically is dependent on the aquarium (volume) and the kind and number of the corals, it is surely interesting to be able to compare. What I have published here up to now is the BASIC PRESCRIPTION which should be enough for 99% of the aquariums .

[RalfP]

submitting the larger text tells me,
that it's awaiting moderation.
well, lets wait ;-)
Ralf

[Woodstock]

Originally Posted by RalfP

submitting the larger text tells me,
that it's awaiting moderation.
well, lets wait ;-)
Ralf

Yes, it was. Sorry for the delay.

[RalfP]

Originally Posted by Woodstock

Yes, it was. Sorry for the delay.

no problem, I wouldn't allow posting of longlong texts without mod. also :-)
Ralf

[boozeman]

wow, dejavu... I read that response on an RC thread about a year ago

it was awaiting moderation because of the included link...you should be fine from now on Ralph

[Woodstock]

Thank you Ralf! VEry well written. Posting that sooner could have saved yourself a few emails

I just sent an email to one of the more popular large volume distributors of ca,mg,alk,etc... (Bulk Reef Supply - Bulk Reef Supply ) to ask them to please consider carrying a NaCl-free salt.
I can't find the stuff here in the states

[RalfP]

boozeman, only the first half of it, i guess?
woodstock, fauna marin is getting more popular in the us, I guess?
they also have NaCl-free salt. Maybe thats a way.
Ralf

[boozeman]

I was gonna say...Tropic marin caries it

[Woodstock]

Raf, I will contact fauna-marin

Booze, Tropic Marin does indeed carry it (Tropic Marin Pro Special Mineral) but it is not available in the US.

[boozeman]

hmmmm... maybe he is thinking of bringing it in, I saw it at Macna

[RalfP]

If someone is ordering the teciii vom Grotech directly,
keep in mind, that they also sell a NaCl free salt.
Ralf

[Woodstock]

Originally Posted by RalfP

If someone is ordering the teciii vom Grotech directly,
keep in mind, that they also sell a NaCl free salt.
Ralf

Ralf, I didn't know we could order directly from Grotech! I was planning on ordering my TECH III from Aquarium & Pond products from SeaMe.com - For hobbyist & professional - Only the best is good enough
I couldn't find those bumps here in the US either

FYI.. I just sent an email to AquariumObsessed (only USA distributor ) and DarkLordCoral.

[boozeman]

Scott (aquariumspecialty) started carrying grotech give him a also Doni