Alkalinity Overdose - Nee some advice.

swannyson7 · Jul 24, 2011

I agree with most everyone else as far as riding it out. While you may not experience losses of your sticks, I'd guess that you're probably going to have burnt tips from the alk spike and stunt their growth a bit, but hopefully everything will pull through.

-Logzor · Jul 25, 2011

Checked out the tank when I woke up this morning, everything has their normal polyp extension and looks fine. Hopefully it stays that way!

Looks like a winter-wonderland in my aquarium.

swannyson7 · Jul 25, 2011

Good to hear! Nowthat things have settled, have you checked your alk level to see how much it increased?

-Logzor · Jul 25, 2011

swannyson7 said:
Good to hear! Nowthat things have settled, have you checked your alk level to see how much it increased?

Not yet. I'm waiting for the tank to clear up a bit so I can have an accurate reading. After consulting some other people I believe my ultra-high Ca level may have lessened the impact of the alkalinity overdose. The massive precipitation may have "used up" the majority of the alkalinity in the overdose, more or less, making it a wash.

I am very curious, we'll see if this is true or not.

As a test, I calculated the approximate volume inside the tubing, which would had drained into the aquarium when I was working on my dosing pump. At the same time I used the reef chemistry calculator to figure out how much solution it would have taken to reach 16 Dkh. The amounts matched, almost exactly. So I have a good idea of how much entered the system and what the initial impact was.

The question is, is that sort of measurement accurate? Surely a Ca measurement would not be accurate, that precipitation is not available to my corals but it would most definitely dissolve and measure within a test kit reagent.

Was 16 dkh actually available to the corals or was it simply a result of my test reagent?

-Logzor · Jul 25, 2011

As I suspected, my alkalinity is at the same level it was before the dosing incident. At little bit lower, actually.

Paul_N · Jul 25, 2011

-Logzor said:
As I suspected, my alkalinity is at the same level it was before the dosing incident. At little bit lower, actually.

Great to hear! Glad this had a happy ending.

-Logzor · Jul 25, 2011

Paul_PSU said:
Great to hear! Glad this had a happy ending.

Me too! I was pretty freaked out when my tank was so white...I could barely see corals just an inch or so away from the glass.

seareefrun · Jul 25, 2011

I would give your size tank a MONSOON drinking water change of 5 gallons. I do this to my system to smooth out the spike's in my 230 gallon. Turn off your main pump and take 5 gallons out of your sump and refill with drinking water or R/O even better. Then start your main pump. The slight drop in salinity(1/2ppt) is no different than a monsoon on the reef's of the ocean's. After one hour of circulation, pour in 2&1/2 cups of non reef salt(pre mixed in a gallon water jug) through your filter or skimmer suction area.
(non reef salt won't have any extra temporary or total hardness additives)

Jackooze · Jan 20, 2020

I just had the same thing happen to me. How did you remove all the precipitation from inside the tank (sand and rocks)?

Dfrashid · Mar 6, 2024

-Logzor said:
So far so good. The tank is actually quite beautiful right now. There was tiny bits of algae covering my rock, which are now covered in a white layer of calcium carbonate. The corals really stand out...every other surface is bright white. Other than that and water clarity I wouldn't guess anything is wrong. Let's hope tomorrow it's the same story.

Stupid mistake on my part...I have around 20 ft of tubing for my remote dosing system of calcium/alkanity/topoff. by taking apart my dosing pump, thus breaking the siphon, I basically drained 20ft+ worth of alkalinity into my system (around 650 ml I estimated).

can i get an update i accidently does 600 ml alk this moring now i have a major alk spike and cloudy water will my corals be ok? alk reading 11.44 dkh i was 7.48 dkh before over dosing