Alkalinity Dosing head failed

[Shredded]

All,
My dosing pump failed sometime after midnight last night. It continued to run until it emptied the cylinder, about 2 liters. My dKH rose from 8.6 to finally stabilize at 12.5. So far there have been no negative side effects. Everything looks fine but, and since this has never happened to me before I am panicked. I have shut down the pump and not refilled the cylinder. I am letting it drop naturally as i believe one swing is enough already. This is a fully mature, 3 year old healthy reef, lots of acro and other SPS. What can I expect? When will the losses begin? I understand that the effects can go on for a long time but so far nothing is happening. Also, recently I had switched to ATI and my phosphates and nitrates were high as their carbon dosing is not the same and I had a die off of bacteria. (this still had not caused any ill effects on the tank) They had both started to drop. Is it possible that the higher nitrates and phosphates had a small protective effect on the corals? (I have no idea why I think that except that uln tanks don't do well at higher alkalinities). Any help would be appreciated.
Tank: 300 gallons total water volume
Temp: 76.9 to 77.5. (very stable)
Alk: normally 8.8 now 12.5
Calcium: 420
Phosphate: 1.7 ppm
Nitrate: 16 ppm
Mag: 1360

 

[Brian barranco]

Just let it ride down slowly and then start dosing to maintain 8.8 alk. I had a mistake like that too with my ato/ kalk. & nothing really happened if it dose slowly & in a extend time.

 

[ca1ore]

Just let it come down naturally. If your SPS were not already stressed, then you may have no losses.

 

[Shredded]

I'm home. No losses so far today. Those things that are normally closing down for the day, are doing so but i can't tell any different from a normal day except for the red flashing of my P4 telling me that something is wrong. I have struggled for so long to get to this point, if it survives this I am only going to keep about a liter in the dosing containers at a time so that any issues will be minimized. I have wanted to raise my alkalinity for a while I am going to use this opportunity to stop it at 9.25 as it drops. I don't know what caused the issue. The chart on the doser shows that it dosed on the hour every hour only the amount it was supposed to so as far as the doser knows it functioned properly. To stop it i had to pull power from the P4 and reboot, so I am leaning toward the controller as the issue but now I am afraid to trust it. Technology will always eventually fail you.

 

[Ditto]

@Shredded - I agree with the other posters let it slowly go down naturally. Did you open a support ticket on the problem also with GHL?

 

[Shredded]

@Ditto I posted on the board but have not opened a ticket yet. but I need to. I have always been so reliant on that equipment and I got lucky that it was diluted ATI Essentials Pro and it was not a full RR cylinder which holds 4 liters so it could have been far worse.

 

[madweazl]

So long as no other negative events happened (or are happening), you likely wont see any problems. My experience with acroporas is that more than one thing needs to occur to trigger a cataclysmic chain of events.

 

[drivingmecrazy]

Yes, slow and natural.

 

[Shredded]

no damage apparent yet. dKH has dropped to 11.1

 

[Greg P]

I think something that has save your corals so far was your decent amount of nutrients.
You're on the right track as to just let it drop naturally to minimize negative effects.

Do you have a pH probe?
I don't know if this would help in the future, but my RKE is programmed to shut off my Alk doser if my pH rises above a desired set point and alert me.
Whether or not this would have saved you is speculative as we don't know why your P4 pooped itself.

 

[Sweet Reef Corals]

Calcium: 420
Phosphate: 1.7 ppm
Nitrate: 16 ppm
Mag: 1360

Is your PO4 really 1.7? Or was that a typo and supposed to be .17?

 

[Shredded]

sorry, yes, .17.

 

[Shredded]

I think something that has save your corals so far was your decent amount of nutrients.
You're on the right track as to just let it drop naturally to minimize negative effects.

Do you have a pH probe?
I don't know if this would help in the future, but my RKE is programmed to shut off my Alk doser if my pH rises above a desired set point and alert me.
Whether or not this would have saved you is speculative as we don't know why your P4 pooped itself.

I do have a constant reading on my Ph and it was a nice 8.3 at that dKH.

 

[Greg P]

I do have a constant reading on my Ph and it was a nice 8.3 at that dKH.

I'd be curious to see what it was reading as the Alk pump was over-dosing ...

Are you saying your graph shows no pH change?

I use a pH probe in a QT while running hypo-salinity to keep the pH close to 8.0
The pump doesn't run much more than a few times/day with maybe 1-2mls in a 20g

 

[Shredded]

I'd be curious to see what it was reading as the Alk pump was over-dosing ...

Are you saying your graph shows no pH change?

I use a pH probe in a QT while running hypo-salinity to keep the pH close to 8.0
The pump doesn't run much more than a few times/day with maybe 1-2mls in a 20g

No, it definitely rose. I usually in the winter time since the house is closed up, I run about 8.

 

[Shredded]

All,
Thanks for those who jumped in to help. My dKH has dropped to 9.1 and have reset my KH Director to maintain 9.3 which is where I wanted to be due to some studies I had read recently so I started dosing again at that point. I am only using a small amount in the dosing cylinder while GHL examines the issue as I am now paranoid. I had no losses and I am extremely happy. Thanks everyone! FYI - this is only anecdotal as there is nothing scientific about what happened, but several acros, one specifically that had been growing slowly for the past three years suddenly sprouted new growth over the past few days and put on a 1/4" within a very short time.