- Joined
- Sep 6, 2017
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Not sure what you mean by the Balling example. Tropic Marin claims they have a Perfect sodium chloride free salt mix to use with sodium carbonate and calcium chloride in that method (Lou Ekus has claimed it here multiple times). If you have such a perfect mix, you can have a perfect salt mix. Whether that is true or not I do not know.
That said, loads of salt mixes have been measured many times.
I didn't want to just 'pick' on Triton so I also mentioned the balling method as that seems quite popular in Europe and I thought they were one of the earliest to say their product was 'complete' and replaced the need for water changes. I was trying to be fair so if I am critical of the idea of just trusting that water changes solve problems or simply trusting a manufacturer that each batch of their salt is 'perfect' then I also have to point out that the same can be said of companies like Triton and Tropic Marin, even if they have generally good reputations. Perhaps this is a cultural thing, in Europe there seems to be a lot more natural scepticism of claims by manufacturers or the wonders of 'mystery' products. Although I do also understand that is a massive generalisation.
I'm not claiming it is "the answer' and I don't think most people do. The sole question (IMO) is whether it is desirable, neutral, or undesirable, and opinions vary on that.
danged scientists! I try to phrase things precisely and I know I should take extra care when their are trained professionals in the room but still I manage to trip up because otherwise my whole post becomes a series of qualifications. I did not mean to imply that you claimed water changes were the answer, I did not get that impression from you, but reading discussions around this subject there are quite a few people (but perhaps not more than 50% as you say) that quite forcefully defend the concept of water changes.
As to the sole question, from my reading I would say water changes are very effective but it would require quite massive water changes to remove all known unwanted compounds that remain in the tank in a standard Berlin system. One then still has to dose to account for the needs of the corals and it seems quite wasteful as both the skimmer and the water changes throw out the useful with the unwanted compounds.