When Coral Coloration Matters; Fauna Marin Balling Light

[PFoster]

Originally Posted by Craigdillman

I'm tagging along as well, how do these results work in a new tank for example my tank is pretty young and I do 25% WC ever 2 weeks most sps are frags or mini colony's and most LPS are medium to big colony's I haven't (yet) had a problem maintaining mag alk or calcium and low po4 and nitrates in between WCs,

Would these systems not be used untill a semi mature tank or

If it aint broken, dont fix it!

If your tank is coming along nicely right now and your parameters are staying relatively in the right range then just keep doing your wc's!

Personally I think it would be better do do 12% every week as opposed to 25% biweekly.
25% bi weekly would technically be changing more water.
But coral like stability for the best growth and coloration. So for 2 weeks your parameters are dropping, dropping, dropping, then spike!

Now with a weekly wc you might need to bump it to say 15% to have the same added value of removing DOC's and other organics and replenishing elements but its pretty close to the same and would be more stable.


There is simply no replacement for water changes!
I can not state strongly enough how good water changes are both for removing everything you dont want, and replenishing every thing you do want.

If anyone has had the pleasure of meeting Anthony Calfo before he will tell you all about his tank he used to have where he did 90% weekly wc's. He would drain the tank the the bottom so the fish could barely swim, then refill with fresh sw.
No skimmer
no additives
nothing
But he will also tell you how he lived very close to the IO plant and would just drive down the street and pick up some in his pickup truck, and how crazy cheap it was for him.
So back to reality as this is not at all viable for us here!

[PFoster]

Originally Posted by mrhasan

Amen to that!

LOL, yeah no need for that here!

We actually understand the chemistry we are talking about here.
Dont get me wrong, I am no RHF. I am def not a chemist!
But i did take more than enough chemistry in university to understand this basic reef chemistry and we have backed it up with years and years of experience.

We have actually run ALL of the methods we are talking about.
FULL Balling
Balling Light
2 Part (well technically 3 part, with the Mg)
Calcium reactors (single stage and double)
Kalk reactors
and just about every additive system and brand on the market.
Well maybe not all of em, now we can generally look at a product and we know what it is. I am sure anyone that has played around with bulk Ca will recognize the round Ca pellets used by many brands.


No webinar required either.
We sell the product we believe in.
Not "believe" in the products we sell!

[PFoster]

Lets get this back on track with more amazing coral pics!

More pics of some of our cool mother colonies.
This piece (and the last pic i put up) are pictures from a pieces in Kevin's mother section and its pretty freakin fantastic!

[fury165]

Great post

Originally Posted by PFoster

Fauna Marin Balling Light is 3 parts.
Calcium
Alkalinity
Magnesium
All the extra trace elements are added into your ca/alk/mg respectively. These would be the extra "goodies" you are referring too, and they are added to the 3 salt mixes.

You just dose exactly what your tank needs according to its consumption rate.
FM is more for the avid hobbits that wants to feel the true heart beat of their tank.... and they are not interested in the people looking to keep stagnant ponds with high DOC's where there are no WC's being performed!!
Simple and easy to use

TM is 3 parts
CA
ALK
NaCl Free salt
Ca, alk and NaCL free salts all should be dose in the same proportion in order to maintain the proposed ionic balance.
BUT if your tank consumes more Magnesium you need to dose MG as well so
MG (optional/possible)
Its in the letter directly from TM, where he says you may need to dose additional MG.
And IF this is the case and IF this ionic balance is so important then what happens when you add Mg??? Now you are also adding more Cl, which means you are not in ionic balance!!
Does this really matter and will it hurt your tank?
NO, absolutely not!




Otherwise every single Kent, Seachem, FM, TM product out there would have crashed thousands of tanks by now.


With Full Balling, Balling Light, or 2 part it all boils down to the same thing.
You need to test your tank, see what your tank is consuming.

If you want to keep an lps/softies tank you can be lazy and check here and there and when you feel like it basically because your parameter consumption rates will be very low. WC's will often maintain your parameters
Honstly I could tell you the last time we checked the parameters on our LPS system and its LOADED with a lot of pricey pieces, but with our reg WC the params dont change much.

lps/sps
You need to check a bit more often, nothing to crazy hard core as your coral load isnt to extreme

Heavy sps load
now you really gotta check more often.
Hoe often really depends on the coral load and how much you are adding and taking away from the tank.
A nice mature display, once a week is probably good.
A newer display, you could have to check as often as every other day depending on how fanatical you are, how heavy you increase the load etc.
I consider myself to be a bit crazy, just slightly crazy about my sps. I hate parameters fluctuating so i probably check way more often than required....

[thmh]

Originally Posted by PFoster

Lets get this back on track with more amazing coral pics!

More pics of some of our cool mother colonies.
This piece (and the last pic i put up) are pictures from a pieces in Kevin's mother section and its pretty freakin fantastic!

OMG poison ivy!! one of the hardest sps to colour up!! anyone who keeps sps knows crazy pink and yellow colouration is hard to achieve !!

/in before locked!!!

[Craigdillman]

Originally Posted by PFoster

If it aint broken, dont fix it!

If your tank is coming along nicely right now and your parameters are staying relatively in the right range then just keep doing your wc's!

Personally I think it would be better do do 12% every week as opposed to 25% biweekly.
25% bi weekly would technically be changing more water.
But coral like stability for the best growth and coloration. So for 2 weeks your parameters are dropping, dropping, dropping, then spike!

Now with a weekly wc you might need to bump it to say 15% to have the same added value of removing DOC's and other organics and replenishing elements but its pretty close to the same and would be more stable.


There is simply no replacement for water changes!
I can not state strongly enough how good water changes are both for removing everything you dont want, and replenishing every thing you do want.

If anyone has had the pleasure of meeting Anthony Calfo before he will tell you all about his tank he used to have where he did 90% weekly wc's. He would drain the tank the the bottom so the fish could barely swim, then refill with fresh sw.
No skimmer
no additives
nothing
But he will also tell you how he lived very close to the IO plant and would just drive down the street and pick up some in his pickup truck, and how crazy cheap it was for him.
So back to reality as this is not at all viable for us here!

Yea it was weird going to this tank my old 30 gallon had no skimmer no dosing and I did weekly 5gallon WC and had frags double in a months time. Since moving corals over haven't seen much growth yet mind you I'm sure they are all under the acclimation of new tank better lights skimmer and getting settled in. Some of the frags/mini colonies are just starting to encrust onto the rock which I have heard they need to encrust before they go back to growing up after i so rudely plucked them from the stable 30 gallon

Another thing i have noticed is that I'm getting less polyp extension on the sps than i did with the 30 gallon no skimmer so I'm wondering if I'm over skimming or not feeding enough "sps food" osier feast and rotifers or coral snow. Before i had to watch it due to only relaying on WC to export nutrients but now i feel like I'm not doing it enough cause its getting skimmed out or fugue using it.

Or am i just being impatient and need to wait for things to catch up. The SPS looks healthy don't get me wrong just not the insane extension i was getting in the 30, the LPS looks more colourful but I'm sure they liked the "dirtier water" of the 30

[PFoster]

Craigdillman, best advise i can give you is to just be patient.
Its a new system, your sponge population will fill in, your bio diversity will increase and as such you will get better growth and better coloration with a bit more time.

Nothing good happens quickly in this hobby.
Be patient, watch your parameters so that they stay in the right range.
Provide good parameters and the most stability possible, add a dash of time and they will be awesome in no time.

[Craigdillman]

Ok awesome thanks

[Tyson]

PFoster,
What would be your recommendations on someone running a zeo tank that's wants to switch from TM balling original to FM balling lite?
Would you not dose the Nacl free salt? Or nether of the zeo color additives.
Thnx, Tyson.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Amadod2]

i was looking into this system last week, but where can one get all of the products to start it up?
currently i dose alk, cal and mag and weekly i add trace elements, there system is just more accurate correct??