Any experience with BRS Pharma/Balling hybrid method?

[under_water_ninja]

Yes I have an ato as well as the kalk dosing. My ato doesn’t use that much. I’ll go through 6 gallons of kalk every week on my 100gl, and about 10gl of Ro water through the top off about every two weeks. Salinity drift not really an issue at all. Weekly water change keeps it steering in the right direction.

 

[JVU]

Out of curiosity, any reason you aren't considering a calcium reactor? Seems like at those numbers it might be worth it.

Yes, I think a lot of people would switch to a calcium reactor at my uptake levels. I just don’t like them. I don’t like the extra complexity, extra failure points, and pH lowering effect (including lack of pH raising effect of carbonate). Harder to dial-in than just setting a dosing schedule. As I understand it they don’t dose minor or trace elements, or at least not enough, so you are still running dosers. I know many people are happy with them, and they can be a great solution. I just don’t like them

Reading through this while being in love with my new CO2 scrubber, not the main job you are trying to accomplish @JVU but I have been able to bump my pH from 8 to 8.23 in a week. I also use the standard 2-part but now you have me intrigued at Trace. All I dose for now is nitrates, phosphates, and acropower

I have a CO scrubber, and it works great to raise pH. I don’t have it recirculating with my skimmer cup because that seems like a serious failure point to me if the skimmer cup fills up. Raises mine about 0.2 units, which is a lot.

I don’t love how it does nothing to flatten out the daily pH swing of about 0.4 units. I started another thread about massive aeration in my overflow to try to reduce the swing and increase pH (which I haven’t actually tried yet because my overflow chamber is full of feather dusters). I have a small frag tank as well as refugium in the sump, and since I started lighting the frag tank opposite cycle from my tank (refug was already on opposite cycle) at @RandyC ’s suggestion, it has reduced my downswing at night by around 0.1 unit. I currently have my CO2 scrubber disconnected but my air intake from my garage which has a consistent low CO2 level of around 400-500 ppm. No internal combustion happens in my garage. This all gives me a swing of 8.0-8.3, which is better than it was. When it gets super hot this summer and I can’t leave windows open I’ll probably start using the scrubber again.

I know some people are skeptical about calcium hydroxide, but that all I use. I don’t dose 2 part, I dose saturated kalk throughout my lights out period. When my lights go out and photosynthesis stops, my kalk dosing starts every half hour until lights go back on. The 12.4 ph of lime water keeps my ph dip almost non existent. You can figure out the dosing by testing each day just the same as you would with 2 part. Once it’s dialed in. Money in the bank baby!! My ph peak in the day is 8.58, my ph lowest during the night is 8.54, sometimes 8.53, lol. And the cost!!!! Oh baby, way cheaper! I don’t use BRS kalk, I use Chris’s Reef Blueprint line from Captiv8 aquaculture. If you guys don’t know about this line. Please look into it. He is the guy that started brightwell, then he sold his shares off and started his own thing, probably politics. I just switched from Red Sea traces(which have worked great for me!! Coral coloration is great! But now I can’t wait to see what these reef blueprint traces do I’ll probably start to notice a difference in about a month or so. I believe kalk has magical properties in it for sure! My coral growth is amazing! It can be a true blessing if you do it right. I stopped dosing 2 part about 2 years ago and have only dosed saturated kalk since. I switched over to Chris Meckly’s(from ACI aquaculture) method about a year ago, and have never been happier. As far as traces, I would definitely use Red Sea over BRS, but now I’m doing the reef blueprint traces. And it is all in one bottle and you dose daily. Sorry I know I didn’t answer any questions about the balling method John, but I hope I shared some useful info.
Kenny

I like Kalkwasser, and it is getting popular again. Everything old is new again I’ve thought about switching to a kalk hybrid system with a kalk reactor dosing as much as I can consistently, a separate ATO to make up the rest of evaporation, and extra dosing for the extra demand of the Ca/alk/Mg/minor/trace elements since I don’t think the kalk would be enough and it doesn’t have minor/trace elements. This would add complexity, which I’m not a fan of. Also the downside of accidental overdose is catastrophe rather than inconvenience, which is a bit scary. But the pH raising effect of calcium hydroxide is pretty great.

Kenny, if you are only dosing kalk at night (when consumption is lower) and no other alk supplement, I’d be worried that you having crazy alk swings. Do you test with a Trident or something where it can give you at least 4 readings over the 24 hours? If not, I think you should and it might be eye-opening. In order to keep my alk steady I have to dose about half as much from 12a-6a to avoid a big spike in the morning.

 

[Meshmez]

Yes, I think a lot of people would switch to a calcium reactor at my uptake levels. I just don’t like them. I don’t like the extra complexity, extra failure points, and pH lowering effect (including lack of pH raising effect of carbonate). Harder to dial-in than just setting a dosing schedule. As I understand it they don’t dose minor or trace elements, or at least not enough, so you are still running dosers. I know many people are happy with them, and they can be a great solution. I just don’t like them

You are correct that they don't dose the additional elements. My understanding though (which could be wrong) is that this is not an issue with calcium reactors, assuming you are doing regular water changes.

My understanding is a calcium reactor replenishes calcium and carbonate directly, where as most 2 part doses calcium chloride and sodium carbonate (or bicarbonate). When the calcium and carbonate ions come off of 2 part, it leaves behind the sodium and chloride. This creates an inbalance of sodium chloride in your water over time, that isn't fixed with water changes.

The balling method ONLY corrects for this imbalance by adding extra trace elements to compensate for the additional sodium chloride that is created. It does not replenish overall usage of trace elements. In other words, the trace elements in the balling method are only correcting for the issue 2 part dosing causes.

This video (though it has its flaws) does explain parts of this.

Just adding this for information, if you don't like calcium reactors for other reasons, those obviously aren't remedied here.

 

[under_water_ninja]

Yes, I think a lot of people would switch to a calcium reactor at my uptake levels. I just don’t like them. I don’t like the extra complexity, extra failure points, and pH lowering effect (including lack of pH raising effect of carbonate). Harder to dial-in than just setting a dosing schedule. As I understand it they don’t dose minor or trace elements, or at least not enough, so you are still running dosers. I know many people are happy with them, and they can be a great solution. I just don’t like them


I have a CO scrubber, and it works great to raise pH. I don’t have it recirculating with my skimmer cup because that seems like a serious failure point to me if the skimmer cup fills up. Raises mine about 0.2 units, which is a lot.

I don’t love how it does nothing to flatten out the daily pH swing of about 0.4 units. I started another thread about massive aeration in my overflow to try to reduce the swing and increase pH (which I haven’t actually tried yet because my overflow chamber is full of feather dusters). I have a small frag tank as well as refugium in the sump, and since I started lighting the frag tank opposite cycle from my tank (refug was already on opposite cycle) at @RandyC ’s suggestion, it has reduced my downswing at night by around 0.1 unit. I currently have my CO2 scrubber disconnected but my air intake from my garage which has a consistent low CO2 level of around 400-500 ppm. No internal combustion happens in my garage. This all gives me a swing of 8.0-8.3, which is better than it was. When it gets super hot this summer and I can’t leave windows open I’ll probably start using the scrubber again.


I like Kalkwasser, and it is getting popular again. Everything old is new again I’ve thought about switching to a kalk hybrid system with a kalk reactor dosing as much as I can consistently, a separate ATO to make up the rest of evaporation, and extra dosing for the extra demand of the Ca/alk/Mg/minor/trace elements since I don’t think the kalk would be enough and it doesn’t have minor/trace elements. This would add complexity, which I’m not a fan of. Also the downside of accidental overdose is catastrophe rather than inconvenience, which is a bit scary. But the pH raising effect of calcium hydroxide is pretty great.

Kenny, if you are only dosing kalk at night (when consumption is lower) and no other alk supplement, I’d be worried that you having crazy alk swings. Do you test with a Trident or something where it can give you at least 4 readings over the 24 hours? If not, I think you should and it might be eye-opening. In order to keep my alk steady I have to dose about half as much from 12a-6a to avoid a big spike in the morning.

I don’t have a trident I use a Hanna checker every morning. Every morning alk is within .01 of where I want it at. I’m not sure about the swings. I will start testing at about 4pm everyday to see where I am at. But as for as the mornings there is no swing

 

[JVU]

My understanding is a calcium reactor replenishes calcium and carbonate directly, where as most 2 part doses calcium chloride and sodium carbonate (or bicarbonate). When the calcium and carbonate ions come off of 2 part, it leaves behind the sodium and chloride. This creates an inbalance of sodium chloride in your water over time, that isn't fixed with water changes.

The balling method ONLY corrects for this imbalance by adding extra trace elements to compensate for the additional sodium chloride that is created. It does not replenish overall usage of trace elements. In other words, the trace elements in the balling method are only correcting for the issue 2 part dosing causes.

Yep, that’s the point of component C in the Balling method (just to balance the excess NaCl created when CaCarbonate is consumed). It is basically NaCl-free sea salt, not trace elements specifically. Triton does the same thing, but it is included, not a separate thing to dose. A lot of people find this confusing.

The BRS/Balling hybrid method specifically adds back the consumed minor/trace elements with the K+ and A- additives, separate from the component C that does what you described.

 

[JVU]

I don’t have a trident I use a Hanna checker every morning. Every morning alk is within .01 of where I want it at. I’m not sure about the swings. I will start testing at about 4pm everyday to see where I am at. But as for as the mornings there is no swing

You won’t see a daily alk swing if you test once a day.

If you want to see it, you’ll want to test at opposite times. Best would be 12a, 6a, 12p, 6p like Trident does, since CaCarbonate consumption is different during the lighted hours than the 6p-12a hours, and both of those are a lot higher consumption than 12a-6a. You would only have to do it for like a day or 2 to see what I’m talking about. If you don’t want to be testing at crazy hours, start with testing 12h apart, like 7a and 7p, and you’ll see the swing probably.

Separate issue, but I assume you meant Hanna checker values within 0.1 of target not 0.01 since the Checker only gives 1 decimal place. Also, even though the resolution of the readout is 0.1 the accuracy is +/- 0.3 for what it’s worth.

 

[under_water_ninja]

You won’t see a daily alk swing if you test once a day.

If you want to see it, you’ll want to test at opposite times. Best would be 12a, 6a, 12p, 6p like Trident does, since CaCarbonate consumption is different during the lighted hours than the 6p-12a hours, and both of those are a lot higher consumption than 12a-6a. You would only have to do it for like a day or 2 to see what I’m talking about. If you don’t want to be testing at crazy hours, start with testing 12h apart, like 7a and 7p, and you’ll see the swing probably.

Separate issue, but I assume you meant Hanna checker values within 0.1 of target not 0.01 since the Checker only gives 1 decimal place. Also, even though the resolution of the readout is 0.1 the accuracy is +/- 0.3 for what it’s worth.

Yes you are correct about the Hanna checker. I will start testing 3 times a day and see where it is at. The corals speak for themselves, so I assume they are getting what they need. But I will monitor more closely and see about swings. Thanks John