Doser dosed all alk to tank 14.8 dkh

[Bfragale]

I set up ca rx about 4 months ago. Dos is still Hooke duo to apex but has been off. I’m not sure how- but somehow the dos alk got set to on- I came home and it was running and the resivior was empty. Maybe a liter.

dkh went from 8.5 to 14.8

tank is full of sps frags and a few lps. I have only 15 gallons of mixed water- did a water change 15 gallons on a 150 gallon system.

now sure what to do.

should I dose cal and hope for precipitation?

just wait it out?

I’m out of salt. All I have is some instant ocean regular. Should I just mix and do larger water change? Or just wait this out?

 

[Bfragale]

Ph went to 8.7 as well…

 

[Bfragale]

I have a feeling everything is toast. Nothing looks bad now but I bet tomorrow will be another story

 

[Bfragale]

Wanted change brought dkh to 14.3. Ph to 8.6.

am I doomed? No more water. I do have 70 gal rodi and a Bucket of instant ocean.

I can get more Red Sea salt tomorrow. I don’t use the instant ocean in this tank. But should I? It’s almost 1 am but if it would help I’ll start mixing

 

[welsher7]

If you have white vinegar you can add that. it will drop the alk and PH. I'm not sure on quantities. but you should be able to find it with a search on R2R.

 

[Bfragale]

Thank you! I do have white vinegar. Thank you for the reply!

 

[welsher7]

I did a quick search and Randy Holmes-Farley states the vinegar will only have a short term effect on Alk. Once the vinegar is metabolized by bacteria the ALK will raise again.

 

[MBruun]

Whatever you do to get your KH down, do it slowly !!!
Your SPS might suffer from sudden fluctations, and also when you go down to desired level of KH

 

[Bfragale]

I did a quick search and Randy Holmes-Farley states the vinegar will only have a short term effect on Alk. Once the vinegar is metabolized by bacteria the ALK will raise again.

I was reading that now too lol. Thanks for that.

I think I all I can do is wait until tomorrow when I can get more salt and do some small water changes. 10% brought it down from 14.8 To 14.3.
Im Thinking 10% water change for the next few days and see where we are.

hopefully sps don’t all die. But at this point all I can do is wait i guess.

Ph is down to 8.5.

I’ll update more tomorrow. Thanks you again!

 

[Bfragale]

Whatever you do to get your KH down, do it slowly !!!
Your SPS might suffer from sudden fluctations, and also when you go down to desired level of KH

Yeah, I think that’s the plan. It will take a while. But slowly seems to be the best way. Thank you!

 

[Harold999]

Whatever you do to get your KH down, do it slowly !!!
Your SPS might suffer from sudden fluctations

A huge fluctuation already happened. Shouldn't you try to bring back the old situation asap by adding vinegar and then huge waterchanges?

@TS, i know this would happen sooner or later for me also, so what i did is reduce the amount of baking soda within the solution with 75%, and just dose 75% more solution.
I also installed a safety that in case the dosing pump is stuck in the on position, it is getting turned off automatically when the level in the returnpump chamber rises.

 

[Screwgunner]

I.O. is at around 10 dkh so it will not bring you down much. Vinegar is only temporary . Muratic acid!

 

[MartinM]

I had a similar incident with a kalk reactor, actually nothing was harmed although there were signs of stress. Don’t drop it down fast, just let it go back down on it’s own is my advice. Two huge changes is twice as many as one. When this happened for me, I didn’t do anything differently and just waited.

 

[Yellowsound]

I went through something similar about 4 weeks ago… my alk went from 8.3 to 13.5. I contemplated doing water changes, but ultimately decided to just let the alk fall naturally. I shut off the alk doser , tested daily until my alk was back around 8.3, and then just started my alk doser again as usual. So far, I’ve seen zero effects from the alk spike.

 

[MartinM]

IME all spikes without any calcium problems don’t result in damage if they’re isolated incidents, yep.

 

[Doctorgori]

I’ve had this happen before without a major meltdown… drop it slow, you might come out ok

 

[ScottB]

I butt dialed a liter myself and my SPS were fine.

I did a few 20% changes that week with some IORC that I "knocked down" with Seachem acid buffer.

 

[piranhaman00]

Wow lots of terrible advice,

you should do nothing and let it drop slowly, you will be fine. Bringing it down quickly again will only create larger problems.

Adding Muriatic acid is probably the worst advice I’ve ever seen on this forum lol.

 

[Mike1970]

This happened to me once, I did nothing I let alk come down naturally I stoped dosing alk I kept dosing cal & mag i tested alk everyday at the same to make sure it was dropping

 

[Screwgunner]

You can use muriatic acid to bring your new salt water alkalinity down . You do not add it straight to the tank. It has to be ariated to bring the ph back up. But you could make your instant ocean usable by dropping the alkalinity this way .