Emergency water change hurtful or helpful?

[Maddlesrain]

Hey all,
I have been on vacation for three weeks, the tank has been chugging along flawlessly during this time. Of course, 2 days before I head home, my alkalinity doser gets stuck in the ON position, and dumps ALK into the tank for just over 2 hours. I wake up, see this, and immediately manually turn off the doser from my phone. I'm not sure what my ALK was at prior because I've been gone for all this time, but I know from my pet sitter that it is now sitting at about 16. I told her to just monitor all of my acropora and let me know how they take it rather than do anything drastic because I worry that it would make the situation worse. I don't have any saltwater premixed because I don't do water changes on this tank, and again, I've been away. Thoughts on this? Has anyone had something similar happen and the coral survive?

Thank you!

 

[Lasse]

This is a tough question. You have one stressfactor (the rise in alk), a possible stress factor (to high alk for some time). You know one thing - the alkalinity will slowly go down (if you have shut off the dosing). You also know that a huge WC will add at least one new stress factor (and possible many more because the present concentrations of many compounds will go up or down - depended of the salt in use)

This is the situation and the impossible question to answer is if the possible stressfactor of prolonged high alkalinity is worse than the stress a WC will cause.

My advise - the way i would do it - if your tank sitter not can spot any drastic change among your corals - just sit down in the boat till you come home and can judge by yourself. If you decide to do WC - I would do a serie of smaller WC - especially if it is a no WC tank

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Maddlesrain]

This is a tough question. You have one stressfactor (the rise in alk), a possible stress factor (to high alk for some time). You know one thing - the alkalinity will slowly go down (if you have shut off the dosing). You also know that a huge WC will add at least one new stress factor (and possible many more because the present concentrations of many compounds will go up or down - depended of the salt in use)

This is the situation and the impossible question to answer is if the possible stressfactor of prolonged high alkalinity is worse than the stress a WC will cause.

My advise - the way i would do it - if your tank sitter not can spot any drastic change among your corals - just sit down in the boat till you come home and can judge by yourself. If you decide to do WC - I would do a serie of smaller WC - especially if it is a no WC tank

Sincerely Lasse

This was my thinking as well. I know the alk will certainly stress things out, but I worry that a water change my make the situation exponentially worse. I stopped doing water changes because I felt like whenever I did, it caused STN. Possibly just a coincidence! Haha
These corals have survived other major stresses (high heat), and made it through, so I'm hoping they will survive the alkalinity dumping. I completely turned off the pump from the app on my phone, so there will not be any additional alk added while I'm away. I think I'd feel more comfortable looking at the situation for myself as well and seeing if the corals look like they're suffering, and if so, if they're salvageable.

Thank you for your thoughtful answer, I hope when I go home I can report that the acropora have held tough through the stressor.

 

[damsels are not mean]

I agree with Lasse. My worry is that the corals may shut down at such high alk and reduce their consumption leading to a slower decline. Small water changes would guarantee the alk is fixed eventually but hopefully change it gradually enough not to create another fast swing. Big water change is definitely too risky here especially if your tank is not close to salt parameters.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Hey all,
I have been on vacation for three weeks, the tank has been chugging along flawlessly during this time. Of course, 2 days before I head home, my alkalinity doser gets stuck in the ON position, and dumps ALK into the tank for just over 2 hours. I wake up, see this, and immediately manually turn off the doser from my phone. I'm not sure what my ALK was at prior because I've been gone for all this time, but I know from my pet sitter that it is now sitting at about 16. I told her to just monitor all of my acropora and let me know how they take it rather than do anything drastic because I worry that it would make the situation worse. I don't have any saltwater premixed because I don't do water changes on this tank, and again, I've been away. Thoughts on this? Has anyone had something similar happen and the coral survive?

Thank you!

Wow, I routinely go away for 4 weeks at a time, and this is the sort of thing that I worry about.

If you were going to be away for another 2 weeks, I'd be tempted to get a reef savvy person in to do smallish water changes each day in order to reduce the Alk and mitigate the effect of chemistry changes that would occur with larger changes.

Given it's only two days, I agree with Lasse that you are going to cause less harm by leaving it as it is until you return when you can take the time to assess the situation properly and make considered decisions.

Good luck, and let us know how it works out.

 

[Lasse]

I stopped doing water changes because I felt like whenever I did, it caused STN. Possibly just a coincidence!

After seen my concentrations of different compounds taking the express lift back and forth after each WC (tested with ICP) - I stop WC 5 years ago

I agree with Lasse. My worry is that the corals may shut down at such high alk and reduce their consumption leading to a slower decline. Small water changes would guarantee the alk is fixed eventually but hopefully change it gradually enough not to create another fast swing. Big water change is definitely too risky here especially if your tank is not close to salt parameters.

The high alkalinity will cause chemical precipitation too - it may go faster than only consumption. But - keep an eye on the Ca when you come home too.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Maddlesrain]

I agree with Lasse. My worry is that the corals may shut down at such high alk and reduce their consumption leading to a slower decline. Small water changes would guarantee the alk is fixed eventually but hopefully change it gradually enough not to create another fast swing. Big water change is definitely too risky here especially if your tank is not close to salt parameters.

Good call, I think my tank is likely way off from salt parameters. I do manually dose a lot of trace elements and what not, but I'm sure I've either added something not in the salt, or have low levels of others. I also have the feeling that a larger waterchange would throw more than the alk off balance.

 

[Maddlesrain]

Wow, I routinely go away for 4 weeks at a time, and this is the sort of thing that I worry about.


Good luck, and let us know how it works out.

I was relatively stress free and not even worrying about the tank until this morning! Definitely a worse case scenario. There are definitely improvements that can be made on the automation system as well...I'm going to try to add more failsafe options to avoid this in the future.

I will absolutely let you all know if things end up pulling through. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[Maddlesrain]

So far most things seem to have survived the ordeal. I came back to a few dead frags, but I can't be 100% certain the alk dump was the cause because two were brand new before I left. We're going through a heatwave now too, so I'm just weathering the storm lol
Honestly though, some of my corals have better polyp extension than they've ever had. I'll keep you all posted!