Alkalinity Dosing Mishap

[Wavemode]

I dosed my calcium with soda ash by mistake. My Calcium as 411 so I used BRS calculator to determine 6.7 oz would raise it to 450. I accidentally added that amount of BRS 2 part soda ash. When I realized I had the wrong jug. I tested the Alk and it was 16.3 dkh. I did a 40% water change in my 50 gallon cube. Now it's 14.3 dkh. This tank is 6 months old. It has 4 small fish, 25 lbs live rock, 10 frags (hard and soft), and a large frogspawn. Is 14.3 dkh dangerous or can I let it ride? All other parameters look excellent. Kessil just came on and everything looks ok. Thank you in advance for any advice you have for me. Lance

 

[ahiggins]

ouch.....Ive been there. Accidentally from salt, as it happened lol
If it were me, I would do water changes until you see it back to where it is IF you have some sensitive stuff.
My situation, in the end, I lost 2 frags of cyphastrea and two stylo. The acans (not happy but didnt lose color), zoa/palys, shrooms, and a hammer were all fine. It depends what you have in there to be honest. Your fish will be fine IMO.

VERY IMPORTANT: whats your nitrates? The higher you go in alk, the higher you need to run nitrates-so feed feed feed!!! I went through this for about 2 months.
At the time, my tank was 0's across the board. I basically fried them. Once I managed to get my nitrates above 20, I saw an improvement.
After my nitrates were up there, I let it go for about 3-4 weeks without a water change to let my corals soak up all the calc, alk. Once I did the water change, I was about 9-9.2 alk.
Good luck, its going to be a pain

 

[Wavemode]

My nitrate is 3 and my nitrite is .1. Ammonia 0. I'm not sure if more water changes will do much. My newly mixed water is at 12 dkh already which is real close to the level I'm trying to reduce. I feed well every day but I will double up for a few days. Thanks for the advice

 

[ahiggins]

So youre normally at a 12?
what salt do you use? I used red sea coral pro, thats the one that raised my alk to 12-thats where I saw the problems happening.

Questions for your tank-not regarding the alk issue:
1-theres a few "types" of tanks you can run- natural sea water, low nutrient tank, high alk. high alk makeup is for a lot of hard corals or frags of them. They will uptake that pretty fast. The two others are more for the home reefer. Im trying to get back to natural sea water (some nutrients). Which do you want to run?
2-what were your parameters before you added the alk? looking more for mag, calc, alk, pH.
3-IF your alk was already at 12, and you werent seeing an issue with coral before this-I doubt you will see an issue with them now. Its only corals that came from low alk to high alk that gives the majority of bleaching/problems. ie, any new corals you would add to the tank IF you were already at 12 to begin with.

Hope this isnt too much info for you lol

 

[Wavemode]

Natural sea water sounds like the way to go. I keep my parameters at the max recommended with dosing. My salt mixes to 12 dkh but my tank rarely exceeds 11.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'd just let it decline on its own now.

 

[ahiggins]

Ohhhhhhhhhh, see I was thinking you were keeping it like around 8-9. Gotcha Randy's got it! lol
I try to keep my tank around 9 max alk. calc usually is around 430-440, mag is 1450 give or take 30. Nitrates usually around 5-10.
Personally, I would be very wary of keeping things maxxed out, no room for error. Although with that big of a dose it wouldnt have mattered hahaha

 

[Wavemode]

I definitely won't make that mistake again. Jugs are well marked now. I thought keeping additives towards the top end was a good thing. I printed the parameters list for reef off live aquaria and have been trying to keep my levels there. I'm so thankful I have you guys to lean on. My heart is in this thing 100% and the last thing I want to do is harm any of my pets. Big lesson today! Don't make any major changes to the tank before I've had my morning coffee haha.

 

[ahiggins]

no worries, we have all be there at one point or another.
Im glad I joined too, I have learned so much since Ive been here.

 

[Wavemode]

It's crazy how much new stuff is out now. I used to propagate Xenia back in the 80's in a dirty water tank for extra cash. So 6 months ago when I started back up I thought it would be a breeze. Boy was I wrong. So much more exciting now. Reactors, Hanna checkers, dosing... Thanks so much for your help ahiggins and Randy. I will definitely be back to find out more about this exciting hobby.

 

[ahiggins]

lol xenia huh? now that stuff is a weed
a friend of mine bought one and now every month I go over and scrape it off her walls hahaha

 

[Wavemode]

YES! Xenia the weed haha. I think I flushed more of that stuff than I ever sold to the lfs. I even had that stuff in my sump. Now I've bought it twice recently and can't keep it alive. I think my GAC / GFO reactor is keeping the water way too clean. It's so clean I have to give my CUC nori supplements often.

 

[ahiggins]

Oh that's interesting

 

[Wavemode]

I went to Lowes and got the ball valve plus a union for quick disconnect purposes. I noticed in my sump that the hoses are connected with stainless steel hose clamps that have turned white and have a small amount of orange rust. I got all new ones but that seems bad for the creatures to me. Is there any other way to connect the hoses without putting metal under water or is that the best I can do?

 

[ahiggins]

Yea, you think they would have better options. I don't have a sump so I'm not sure. I do agree with you though, rust doesn't seem like a good idea lol

 

[Wavemode]

Ok thanks for the feedback. I think I'll just change them out every few months when I clean the pump. Eventually I'll switch over to an all PVC return so I can turn my overflow into a Herbie to quiet my tank down. So much work and yet so satisfying. So far all my inhabitants seem to be fine from my alkalinity spike yesterday. My walls are white from all the precipitation but looks like it'll come off with a little scrubbing. I've got a brute garbage can full of pukani dry rock that's been cooking for 6 weeks now waiting for the phosphates to come down. Going to set up a FOWLR with it so I can have a lion fish and an angler frog fish.

 

[Rybren]

Is there any other way to connect the hoses without putting metal under water or is that the best I can do?

You can get plastic hose clamps online. On other tanks that I've had, I just used zip ties.

 

[Wavemode]

Hello Rybren. A heavy duty zip tie is a great idea. Just cinch it down good with pliers right? I couldn't find plastic hose clamps online a while back when I looked but I'll try again. I totally agree there shouldn't be any metal in a reef whatsoever. Thanks so much for the advice.

 

[recess62]

I went to Lowes and got the ball valve plus a union for quick disconnect purposes. I noticed in my sump that the hoses are connected with stainless steel hose clamps that have turned white and have a small amount of orange rust. I got all new ones but that seems bad for the creatures to me. Is there any other way to connect the hoses without putting metal under water or is that the best I can do?

Just be sure that your valves are PVC and not brass

 

[recess62]

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/ratchet-clamp-for-tubing-1-6684828461f4e5bda1e2a33b5e0db6d3.html

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