Refl ections: Part 2
90’s
Making the headlines
was the fi rst Gulf War
and on a brighter
note the Good Friday
Agreement bringing
peace to Northern
Ireland. The hit show
‘Friends’ came to our
television screens as
did the infamous OJ
Simpson! The World
Wide Web, which
would profoundly
aff ect the evolution
of reef-keeping over
the coming years, was
created.
Moving into the new decade,
the hobby was still going
through a period of change.
The increasing popularity
of the Berlin system and the
widespread use of live rock as
the main source of fi ltration
resulted in the steady demise of
wet/dry trickle fi lters.
The late 1980’s brought about
a lighting revolution with the
introduction of VHO fl uorescent
and metal halide lighting and
they remained fi rm favourites
with coral keepers. The ongo-
ing development of brighter,
more effi cient and smaller T8
tubes continued to increase
their popularity throughout the
90’s. Aquarists utilised more of
these smaller tubes to provide
higher lighting levels allowing
more demanding corals to be
kept without the heat issues of
metal halides. Tubes became
available in a wide range of
wavelengths providing the abil-
ity to create the desired colour
spectrum and the new dimma-
ble tubes allowed sunrise and
sunset eff ects to be created.
This decade brought one of the
most infl uential developments
since the Berlin system was in-
troduced. In 1994 Hans Werner
Balling published an article in
the German magazine DATZ(Die Aquarien und Terrarien Zei-
tung) outlining his method to
maintain key parameters whilst
retaining ionic balance. Though
achievable with the proven and
popular calcium reactor and
kalkwasser methods, the Balling
system didn’t have the relatedpH issues and had fewer risks.
The Balling system is based on
the precise addition of calcium
chloride dihydrate, sodium bi-
carbonate and sodium chloride
solutions to maintain stability
and ionic balance.A three channel doserballing elementsJ u n e 2 017 23