Many articles on the balanced additive method known as the Balling Method suffer from an overdose of chemistry, expecting the reader to become an expert in molecular weights and atomic bonding before getting to the point. The author’s own article is a fine example of this; and so this article has been written to address the valid concern that the simplicity of Balling has been lost within the chemical equations.

The aim of this article is to allow even the most chemistry unaware reader to use the Balling Method without having to understand lots of largely irrelevant material. This article covers the Balling Method. It does not cover the quite different supplementation method known as Balling-Lite, which has little to do with the Balling Method and is more closely aligned with other systems such as the Randy Holmes-Farley two and three part formulae.

It is assumed that the reader has an understanding of the need to supplement, so this is only briefly discussed. The biological formation and non-biological precipitation of the hard deposits is beyond a short article such as this.

The process of building hard deposits within a marine environment consumes various chemicals from the water column, these being mostly calcium and carbonates with a smaller amount of magnesium. As hard corals, coralline algae and to a lesser extent soft corals and some algae (such as Halimeda sp.) grow, they build these calcium carbonate deposits.

Chemical stability within the reef environment is important to reduce stress and maximise the potential of the corals.

It is therefore necessary to replace the chemicals that are removed. This can be achieved by various different methods.

It would be so easy if we could take two bottles, one of calcium and one of carbonates, and squirt a bit of each into the tank, tick the box saying “supplements” and walk away happy that the job was done. There are various different formulae, potions and bottles on the market that could lead you to understand that this is exactly what you can do.

However it isn’t that easy. All of these methods of addition are fundamentally the same and in each case they add other chemicals into the environment as well as those that we want. Over time these additional chemicals will cause an imbalance in the environment, and therefore will demand high frequencies of high volume water changes - something that could have been used as the sole supplementation method in a lot of situations.

The aim of Balling is to use these unwanted chemicals as an advantage rather than something to be hidden behind fancy packaging. With the addition of the “secret ingredient” (okay, it’s not really a secret ingredient but I promised not to dive into a chemistry lesson) everything balances out and you are left with an environment that stays in balance without the buildup of these additional chemicals.

In Balling there are three different mixes that are added from separate containers. It should be said early on (and I’ll repeat this I’m sure) that at no point should you mix any of these together either outside of the aquarium or within the aquarium. Dosing should be done slowly, at different times into a high flow region of the system so that it mixes as quickly as possible into the bulk of the water column.

Various brands of the dry chemicals are available. However to ensure consistency within this article I will refer to the Fauna Marin range that is purposely packaged for reef aquarium use.

The mixes are as easy as A, B, C, D and I find it easiest to keep everything in the same order, from the bottles on the shelf, through the mix storage containers, dosing pumps and even the order of dosing in the day. I will refer to these mixes by letter rather than by their chemical formula.

Balling Mix A - Alkalinity
The first mix supplements the carbonates within the aquarium that are measured using an alkalinity test kit such as the Salifert Carbonate Hardness / Alkalinity kit.

Balling Mix B - Balance
The second mix, though only alphabetically, is the key to the success of this method. It contains all that you would normally get in a standard bucket of salt except for the two parts that are in mix A and mix C. When this mix is added in addition to mix A and mix C, the result is a complete marine standard solution with all of the necessary parts in balance. This mix uses the additional stuff in the other two mixes and works with them, rather than allowing them to put the system out of balance.

Balling Mix C - Calcium
The third mix adds the calcium component to the aquarium that is directly measured using a calcium test kit, such as the Salifert Calcium kit.

Balling Mix D - Tank Water Extract
The final “mix” is nothing more than the water in the system, some of which needs to be extracted in order to ensure that your system’s top up system continues to work as expected. When added, the above three mixes will increase the volume of the system with salt water. This is the same as performing top ups with salt mix, which results in a runaway salinity. This mix simply reduces the volume of the system back down to the correct level.

In this article the modified quantities now stated on the packaging for the Fauna Marin products are used. These differ from the original Balling quantities in that they are slightly lower. This slight reduction is due to the difficulty that was experienced in mixing the alkalinity supplement and its tendency to fall out of solution if the temperature dropped. The reduced concentrations reduce both of these issues.

Three different ingredients are needed to create the input mixes as well as a supply of RO water, with as low a TDS, nitrate and phosphate reading as possible, preferably zero. The three items needed are:

• A. Sodium bicarbonate
• B. Chloride-free salts
• C. Calcium chloride dihydrate

To create the mixes the chemicals are dissolved into RO water. I repeat: dissolved into RO water. Never add water to chemicals. Always add chemicals to water slowly, stirring all the time, and never allow the chemicals to clump together (think of the trouble you can have with lumpy custard that is due to the instructions saying to add boiling water to the jug in which the powder has already been placed).

The amount of water to use, and thus the amount of the chemicals to use really depends upon the demand your system will have and the amount of time you want between mixing up the solutions. For the purposes of this article I’ll stick to the standard two litres as it’s a widely used amount and we may as well be consistent. Obviously if you have a large, highly-stocked, well-lit reef then having a two litre mix would not be enough for more than a few days.

The author's own system uses a trio of plastic 5L containers normally used for storing breakfast cereals, a hole drilled through the lid with rigid airline to pull out the liquid and a small hole in the top to let air in.

To mix the chemicals it is as simple as measuring out RO water close to the 2L mark, say about 1750ml, adding the necessary amounts in while stirring constantly, and then topping up the container to the 2L mark. You will then need to stir for a while until it has fully dissolved. I drop one of the tiny NewJet 400 pumps into the mix and use that to stir, and then ensure that it is rinsed in RO water (that is then disposed of) before using in the next mix.

Using this method of topping up to 2L ensures that the strength of the solution is correct as you end up with the correct volume rather than 2L plus the amount displaced by the chemicals.

The amounts that you will need are:

• A. Sodium bicarbonate 163.8g / 2L
• B. Choride-free salts 48.5g / 2L
• C. Calcium chloride dihydrate 144g / 2L

It is advised to use RO that is at room temperature when mixing and storing or you will find it very hard or even impossible to dissolve these amounts into the water. Room temperature is above 18 degrees Celsius. If like the author you have a remote sump in a cooler location (my garage drops to 10C overnight at times) then you will have to proportionally decrease the amount of chemicals used. Further advice on this can be given for individual cases.

The sodium bicarbonate and the chloride-free salts do take quite a bit of stirring to dissolve. However with these slightly reduced amounts it should dissolve within a few minutes. The calcium chloride should dissolve very quickly as it is quite a weak solution in comparison to the others.

This is the bit when everybody comes out of the shadows and promotes their own way of doing it; many different dosers with all sorts of programmability are available. In this article we will ignore all of the specifics on how to program one system or another and look at what it is you need to dose.

Four independent dosing channels are needed for Balling; three for the input mixes and the final one that extracts water from the system. A four channel dosing system is therefore required.

Examples of ways to fulfil this requirement range from a few large syringes and manually adding the mixes all the way through to a full-blown GroTech TEC III NG and add on GroTech EP II dosers, or a standalone GHL-Profilux dosing pump with four channels.

Dosing pumps can be added to an Aquatronica (two triple dosers required) or GHL Profilux Plus II (single four pump version required) if either of these are available for use. The advantage of the dosers is that little and often is the best way. Many automatic dosers have the option of spreading the specified dose over a long period by dosing a very small amount on an frequent basis.

In all cases however the basic rules stay the same, in that you need to add enough of the input mixes to satisfy demand, and you need to extract enough of the tank water to keep the salinity stable.

The key part of this system is that it keeps the calcium and alkalinity levels stable, and to do this the right amount of the mixes need to be added. As in all means of supplementation it is vital that the dose is based on actual measurements of the key parameters, in this case the calcium and alkalinity.

To avoid going into the chemical makeup of the mixes a simple rule of thumb is proposed but to use it, it is necessary to know the demand of your system. The drop in the system’s calcium level over a 24 hour period will allow you to determine the correct daily dose at that point in time.

The calculation of the dosing amount is quite simple: for each ppm drop in calcium you need to dose 5ml of each of the mixes per 100 litres of system volume.

Required Daily Dose =	SystemVolume (litres)	x   DailyCalcium Drop (mgL-1)   x   5mL
	100

Thus if you have a 500L system (total water volume), and measuring finds that your calcium drops by 10ppm over a 24 hour period you need to dose 250ml of each of the three input mixes, this amount being work by the required dosage = 500L/100 x 10mg/L x 5ml = 250ml

The extract channel should be set initially to 2/3rds of the total added amount, so in our example this would be 500 ml. The original Balling Method had the extract channel as the sum of all three inputs but this has been the subject of further research and personal communication with Hans, and the 2/3rds figure is now advised as the starting point. It is essential that this is seen as a guide figure. The actual amount depends on so many external factors that it is not possible to state exactly what it should be. For example the amount of liquid extracted via a skimmer on the system greatly affects the extract requirement.

Therefore to set the extract amount you should keep a watch on the system salinity. If the salinity is seen to rise slowly over time then the extract amount should be increased. Conversely if the salinity is seen to fall then the extract amount should be reduced.

The final thing to cover is the issue of magnesium supplementation. Magnesium can be dosed within this system quite simply by adding a further chemical, magnesium chloride, to the calcium chloride in the Mix C container. The exact amount needs to be fine-tuned over time by monitoring the magnesium levels; however a starting dose of 34g of magnesium chloride hexahydrate per the 2L mix is sufficient for most systems.

The Balling Method is, at its most basic level, a very simple system to use and there is no need to understand the chemistry involved. Most people who use other systems such as calcium reactors driven by CO2 have no understanding of the reactions occurring within the reactor - so why should Balling be any different?

It is a daunting subject to cover however, and so for further help or guidance the Chemistry forum on UltimateReef is available. In addition the author is part of the New Member Help Team on UltimateReef and so can be reached through the NMHT Extra forum.

I’ll not say anything on this, other than to quote the announcement in the NMHT Extra forum: