that’s a really nice tank!

that's a really nice tank!

My suggestion would be to let us know what salts you are using and all your paremeters, I think (complete guess) your calcium maybe too high and you are buffering with too much sodium bicarb.

If Eric will allow us to help you here then great, if not then please contact throug normal channels to assist

i am just a FM user that has gotten very frustrated with manual. there are different versions. some of the salts say different things. i also have a low ph and i bought this because i was told it would raise my ph. i then found out it is like recipe 2 which lowers ph.

other than this the salts seem to work well and mix well. looking forward to trying more fauna stuff. i just hope the manual is improved!

I try to understand the whole Postings here , i see often that the system light is not understandly completly iám wondering a little bit about it cause i create a system which works without weigh the salts and calculate . The right dosing will come byself and due to the salt mixes it is not necessary to add the same amount of every salt like other receipts do .

In germany we use that methode so long and there is absolute not such a discussion about it. so sometimes for me hard to understand what exact is the question.
Maybe we can do that step by step

………..

@christian

I never can be the cheapest company high purity materials / salt mixes with Biopolymers, Trace elements and stabilizing salts costs more then a cheap salts with unknown elements in.
Transport / Costums, dealer margins also costs .

The main different between cheaop salts is that you will lost your chemical stability over the time , add to much unwanted Trace Elements in , and in depending of the stock you will get aver the time brown corals and algea grow.

my salts are mixes to avoid all inbalances and overdosed trace elements.
also it helps the corals by good coloration and grow
look at this tank
http://www.cashh.de he uses over years my salts
such effects you will never have with chaep salts

many greetings
Claude

As I have mentioned to you before, the instructions imply a game of guess and check with no indication of the strengths of each balling solution.

Per the manual it states:

'Therefore you start with adding 20ml/100 liter and measuring the actual value before and some hours afterwards”

It gives no hint that the calcium solution and alkalinity concentration and this will take time to find out by adding the recommended dose and testing. It also places significant weight on inaccurate hobbyist grade test kits.

A simple 20ml of Ca will raise 100l of water by XXppm and 20ml Alk solution will raise 100l of water by XXppm is all that is needed and will save users plenty of headaches.

Claude, If I read you correct, you are saying that we could replace the salts with commonly available, less expensive salts (I know they are now as good) and still follow the FM Balling light method? I’m not trying to cut corners; I’m just looking for a solution that works for me. I find it very unfortunate that by the time I received a 2KG of salt from you I have paid more than 3x in shipping then the actual value of the salts.