"classic balling" with AF microelements and salts

[s@ki]

is anyone using AF products with "generic" Balling lite methode like described here http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1432284 ?
They say 2000gr per 5l container of Ca , same for MG and 500gr of sodium bicarbonate per 5l containerfor kh. That would be 8 times more than AF CA buffer and 40 times for MG.On the other hand 500sodium bicarbonate against 400 AF KH buffer which is rather simmilar. Would this mean that CA and Mg buffer are more concentrated or something else is in them ?
If not, that would mean I should add 1000gr of mineral salts to 5l container and whole bunch of Components strong(who much?) . Now is there know relationship between consumption of CA, Mg or KH and mineral salts or component strong? Should I base dosage on Ca consumption? I have like 2-3 years supply of calcium and mg chloride I would like to spend and now I'm totally stuck with microelements. (i already have MS for AF)

 

[dawen]

Is 25g mineral salt for 1L of water, where you get that 1000g for 5L from? There is a starter guide in aquaforest website


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[s@ki]

dawen, please read my post again with a bit more attention
AF uses 50gr of Af Ca buffer per liter of RODI meaning 250gr per 5l canister. This is 8x less than from link above for balling with pharmaceutic Calcium chloride etc.
Ok, this would mean that AF solution is less saturated meaning if you use more saturated solution then you need to have more saturated mineral salts and components strong. Meaning, if Ca is 8 times more saturated, then 25g/l * 5l * 8 = 1000gr/5l
But then KH is almost the same saturation, and MG is 40x less saturated in AF
This is why I asked if someone used AF products this way and how did they adjust concentration.

 

[Gezkovich]

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[Martin Kuhn]

Max saturation of NaCl free salt ("Mineral salt") is 25g/Liter.
You can't dose higher BUT you simple can use more /less of the stock solution

The "strong components" are another mix of trace elements (the NaCl free salt is also..). So, what you are asking for is 2x trace elements in your stock solutions.

Dosing salts for Ca,Alk/Mg is quite easy to do and you can change concentrations in a quite big range as you like to. You just have to take this into acount if you have to figure out "how much of your solution you have to dose?". If you lile molar-based arithmetics this is not too complicated.
If you don't like.... try my AquaCalculator .... define your recipee as you want and let the sofwtare do it's job.


For traces i would not recommend to do too many own experiments. The thing: you don't know about the content and concentrations of the trace mixtures you buy !
So the risk of under- or over-dosing is obvious there. Big aquaristic companies made their own tests, checks, .... and suggest/sell recipees that they of course held as a secret.
I wouldn't take this risk on my own just for the sake of saving some $ on trace mixtures. Loosing SPS is by sure more expensive and not very nice for the animals.

rgds M

 

[s@ki]

Dear Martin,
I've tried your calculator and have been calculating this and that for more than a week.
Only thing I've found out is that there's no point in using "laboratory" Ca, Mg or KH as the price difference is just to low to risk anything. IMHO price of AF balling is in a way greatly defined by Components strong, which doesn't come in big bottles, only in quantities for 10l of solution.Even the smaller packages of salts are 2-3 times cheaper and last for multiple batches.

I'll definitely visit my LFS next week and lets start mixing

 

[Martin Kuhn]

The prices of the Ca/AlK/Mg raising salts even of several bigger premium reef suppliers dropped in the last years.

It is not too much different from if you just by these salts from some chemical suppliers.

Advantage for this products is better availability and that you get also "usable information of use" together with the product.

One more thing: especially for the Alk component you can get some products which are a mix of NaHCO3 and Na2CO3 with less ph influence than the single products. Most companies call this then "Buffer", "Alk Mix" or so

Anyhow.... using my tool you can also define yourself a recipe that exactly matches what you want. (Type of salts and concentrations that you prefer). The advantage is that it calculates you the amounts you need to dose fully independently from whatever you define in your recipe.

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Totally different for the trace elements.
Here sometimes you find very expensive products. Why ? Hmmmm .... because customers pay for it as they simply believe in it ? because we don't know how to DIY this products ?

2/3 part Theoretically is very transparent to everyone in our times. Lots of customers switch to cheaper DIY
So traces are the remaining part where they can make business



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