Are all those sold as a set or do you buy them individually?

Is Balling compatible with Zeovit’s basic 4?

I bought FM Balling product individually.

Dosing rate of Ca and KH container should be the same? If not, will it be imbalance of ion?

I am using Balling method with Zeovit system, but I have not seen any problems. I asked your question in Zeovit forum, and they advice my it is no problem.

@Ian they can all be purchased separately.

@TheDog, Zeo does not advocate full balling with their system due to potential trace element issues. This could be particularly harmful when using Spur2 due to the heightened zooxanthellae expulsion in the presence of zinc and other heavy metals.

That said, I know many reefers using balling + Zeo with zero issues. I would suggest starting off at 25% the recommended trace level and building up.

@TAKA, dosing Ca & Alk at different rates is okay provided it is not because of precipitation. Really the only reason for such an imbalance to occur is in the salt mix (e.g. elevate Ca in proportion to Alk). This can be fixed before the addition of the water change or through offset dosing if water changes are significant enough to alter the chemistry.

The Dog – Fauna Marin make their own zeo systems that are designed to be compatible 100% with the fauna marin balling system. The Fauna marin Ultra lith system also has been developed for easy switching from one manufacturers zeo system to theirs so people can have the option of flexibility without being limited.

Could you tell me what is differece between 2-part and balling method? I want to try 2-part dosing manually with BulkReefSupply product instread of CA reactor.

If I do waterchange weekly, Is it OK to use 2-part?

@ Vince, Two-Part is nearly the same as the Balling Method, but does not use Trace Elements, Magnesium, or NaCl Free Salt.

With weekly water changes you will be fine with 2-part. Hope that helps and all is well.

@SPSHolic – Eric wrote an article awhile back on the difference between 2-part and balling. Here is a link: http://glassbox-design.com/2008/the-balling-method-how-does-it-differ-from-two-part/

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

-TDF

Hi

I´am claude from germany the owner of Fauna Marin

If there ist interest on the balling methode i can explain it here and answered all the questions about it.
And what are the differences between the methodes

Claude

Are you going to follow FM’s Balling Light recipe? In doing some comparisons about different 2part/Balling recipe’s it stands out to me that the concentration of the calcium solution that they call for (2 kg CaCl/5L water)is very strong compared to others. Randy calls for 500 mg CaCl/3.8L (1gal) in his. Traditional Balling calls for 715mg/10L.

The other issue is the use of straight sodium bicarb (sodium hydrogen carbonate, baking soda) as opposed to soda ash (sodium carbonate, baked baking soda). The use of baking soda will depress your pH somewhat relative to using soda ash because of the extra CO2 molecule. The strength of the alk solution that FM calls for in Balling Light is similar to Randy’s (baked baking soda) and traditional balling (which also calls for baking soda).

Now based on the above it doesn’t seem possible to have even dosing of the solutions. In fact, you are going to have to dose about 3-4 x as much alk solution as calcium solution to approach the correct ratios.

I personally have used BRS at about equal amounts per day (anywhere from 50-100 ml per day in a 120 g lightly stocked mixed reef). Although all of that said I am very interested in losing the MgCl/MgSO4 solution and replacing it with FM NaCL free salt and using the FM ultra trace B solutions. FM is the only game in town for the NaCl free salt here in the US and I do think that their products themselves are high quality. I just have some serious reservations about their Balling Light system.

@bloody,

You are correct that FM’s solutions are slightly stronger, but it is really not by that much. Converting to gallons to compare to Randys, we see that for CaCl dihydrate FM uses 272.5g / gallon while Randy calls for 250g / gallon. For NaHCO3 FM uses 310 while Randy again calls for less–297.

Compared to Randy’s ratios by weight the numbers are slightly skewed, perhaps due to Claude’s additional biopolymers. But with FM’s numbers a balanced solution, or near balanced solution, is had. Hope that helps.

What kind of salt are you running? I ran the same chems that you plan to use above via Profilux for eighth months and had a lot of issues with my corals (new tank, all corals were started as frags).

Basically I had very little growth to negative growth along with rtn on bases. My live rock had good coralline on it when I started that degraded to very little coralline and the live rock turned basically green in color over time. I was using Seachem salt and also running Ultralith along with the balling light/trace. Alk always tried to stay in the 5.5 range no matter what I did with the ratios.

After a long effort on doing everything I could to make it work – I gave the balling light chems up and and switched to BRS two part recipe and Reef Crystals salt. Saw immediate, though slow improvement in growth and a stoppage/reversal of the basal rtn – the trend continues – but it only has been a month since I switched. I have kept the Ultralith dosing constant throughout.

I do hope you can make balling light work great for you and that you provide details on how/what you do to get the great results. Please try to include other details such as the salt brand/ulns type/feedings/carbon etc..

Thanks

Hi,

Im interested in the Balling light method to adapt into my tank. I have readt the FM pdf file. For the starting point, it stated 20ml/100l.

1) Assuming that my Alk,Ca,Mg is low, ill adjust my adding 30m/100l? Is that true?

2) Is the dosing should be done 1 lump sump? Meaning 20ml straight or drip-by-drip until 20ml?(i’d guess thats the purpose of dosing pump right?)

Thanks!

Hello, im trying to avoid having to get a calcium reactor ,co2 tank and regulator.
So im trying to decide if this profilux can do what the aqua controller junior from neptune brand can do.Thank you for response.

Does this profilux unit monitor and control ph automatically?
Will it dose automatically and know how much to dose from calcium jug and how much from alkalinity?
Will it do it seperately as suggested.
Does it monitor and control temperature units like chillers and heaters automatically when needed?
Control powerheads or wave makers?

@Alan,

I would suggest separating the two items–dosing pumps and controllers.

For dosing items like two part or balling all you need is the actual dosing pump (capable of dosing in small increments) and the ability to set timers. The Profilux Standalone doser is this in one package, but all it does is control the dosing pumps. For full control over the aquarium an aquarium controller would be needed such as Profilux P3 or Neptune Apex (or AC jr). These can control pumps, heater, chillers, lighting etc. If you go with a full aquarium controller, dosing pumps can also be added and controlled from the main head unit.

For dosing Ca and Alk you will have to manually dial in the amounts required–no accurate calcium and alkalinity probes exist to allow this type of control. PH is not an issue as you are not using CO2 in the balling or two part method.