TM balling webinar synopsis

[Aqua-Digital]

Many thanks to those that joined our webinar.

One of the highly important topics that came up was the question of imbalances and as the slide show was clear to show, once explained it makes so much sense. I will try my best to put some of that info here.

If anyone highlights an inaccuracy to what I have written please let me know and I will happily address that in the thread openly.

Hearing about the relationship between the ions of Calcium chloride and sodium Bi-carbonate was fascinating especially how the coral polyp takes in the calcium ion from the calcium chloride element and the carbonate ion from the sodium element and what is left behind is your imbalance.

Left behind is sodium from the Bi-carbonate and chloride from the calcium, these two together of course make sodium chloride, and here lies the imbalance in 3 part, all of a sudden you have extra sodium chloride with no other elements attached to it floating around in your tank, and by doing a water change you are only removing the percentage of that water change of the imbalance.

So if you are dosing 2 or 3 part light systems and rely on water changes alone to address the imbalance you are only removing for example on a 10% water change, 10% of that imbalance.

Now - by adding into the mix Part C the remaining sodium chloride has something to balance it which includes the 70 trace elements

Now of course there is an argument that this system too raises your sodium chloride level, and yes you are right, BUT and here is the defining factor, it is doing it in a balanced format in the same way you would be doing by adding more sea salt to your system, because it is balanced there is no ionic risks, and even the most minimal water change would cater for any salinity rise, however due to being in balance and such a very low level this is not an issue, where as an unbalanced system with just sodium chloride floating about is.

What is an issue however are 3 part or light systems that allow for free amounts of sodium chloride in your system with nothing to balance it allowing for a complete imbalance that can not be addressed wholly by water changes as you only remove the % of water change and as such only remove that % of imbalance.

There is only one way to keep a system in balance when dosing calcium and sodium Bi-carbonate and that is to add in proportion NACL free salt. (Part C)

To make the point clearer, the very first original Sea Salt mix from Tropic marin that still to this day forms the basis of all their salts is a 100% mixture of A B and C of the Tropic Marin Balling system together!

So there is no argument chemistry in itself proves it, if you dose a system with nothing to balance the excess NACL you create an imbalance, and this is where part C comes in which is made up of everythign you find in a sea salt mix including all trace elements without adding additional NACL, hence the term for part C as NACL-FREE sea salt. But lets be clear Part C is not just magnesium as in every other other 3 part system, it is the whole bells and whistles found in sea salt as stated before WITHOUT any NACL component.

This is why Tropic marin balling from the inventor Hans-werner balling is so popular to those that care about doing this 100% right.

[IanWR]

Originally Posted by Aqua-Digital

To make the point clearer, the very first original Sea Salt mix from Tropic marin that still to this day forms the basis of all their salts is a 100% mixture of A B and C of the Tropic Marin Balling system together!

Sorry if this is a dumb question, I am still on the steep part of the learning curve. If parts A+B+C=salt mix, could you just not dose anything and do larger water changes to achieve the same result?

[Aqua-Digital]

Good question and yes if you want to do near 100% water changes a week but even then you would still get depletion of trace elements in between the water changes where as with the TM system these vastly depleted elements are re introduced to your system on a daily basis through dosing.

Something also to remember you need the free NACL in your tank combined with the ABC to make up NSW not just ABC alone. I missed that point in the quote from your post. So NSW is essentially NACL + ABC (in specific proportions)

[Ron99]

But one could also use other trace element supplements along with simple two part dosing to accomplish essentially the same thing.

[Aqua-Digital]

No sorry 100% incorrect.

Do you know exactly what trace elements are in sea salt exactly and to what required proportion? The whole purpose is to have a balanced system, you cant juggle multiple solutions hoping to get it somewhere roughly right, and by the time you have done all that you might of well spent the money on the proper system.

Many are not even available as an independent system.

[Ron99]

I'm pretty sure I can come up with plenty of information on what trace elements are in sea salt and how they are consumed etc. There's no magic there. There are plenty of companies selling trace element supplements of various sorts. Complete or not.

I know you are selling this stuff and it's your job to promote it but let's not pretend there is some special magic in the Tropic Marin system. It's Calcium Chloride, Sodium Bicarbonate and a trace element solution. And honestly, every Ca and Alk supplement on the market are ridiculously overpriced, probably overly dilute and can be replicated easily at home for much less money.

I'm not trying to make this a dig on the Tropic Marin product which is probably good and does the job but you are making it sound like super magical solutions to maintaining our reef chemistry that can't be accomplished with other products and I think there are many ways to accomplish the same thing.

[Aqua-Digital]

But once you have gone to all that effort to try and cobble together all these elements it will cost you probably double what a set of Tropic marin would and then you have to go to all the effort to try and make it work, is it really worth it trying to do it DIY hoping you may save some money which ultimately after all that effort I am pretty confident you would not.

But for sure please post here your DIY recipe and costs it would be a great exercise.

Nobody is pretending its magic, its reef chemistry, nature sets the rules not us, there is no magic here, I think you would find the seminar very informative to be honest if you think this is all marketing magic

[Aqua-Digital]

The basics are when you dose 2 part you are left with sodium chloride as explained above, this imbalances your system. The cure to this is not magic, its basic reef chemistry.

extra sodium chloride is not good, so it needs to be balanced NACL sea salt does this for you. Again wheres the magic here? This is not a marketing made up product, the end result of the product is NSW.

[Aqua-Digital]

For anyone that fancies the gauntlet of making their own I thought I would share this

Of course you dont need the NCL as that's the part you are trying to balance

[mrhasan]

Hows the dosing done Michael? Because to have one sodium ion for every chloride ion, there has to be a ratio of 110.98g of CaCl for every 84.007g of CaHCO (molar masses). Does that satisfy the aprox 10ppm of calcium consumption every 2dkh of alk drop? Because if that amount of grams are not maintained, there will either more be more sodium ions or more chloride ions with an end result of being imbalance.