Help me avoid total crash....

[Smite]

I've been slammed this last week with work. I've been walking by my frag tank thats holding all my ups until my 180 is built. Just visually checking top-off and dosing containers. My alk container was looking low but still had a 1/4 in there. I took the time to actually measure my alk with my salifert test kit.......I was VERY surprised to see it turn pink almost instantly! Apparently my dosing tube lifted in the container and has been running dry all week.

I lost a strawberry shortcake colony but it hadn't been looking good since I started my battle with AEFW. Everything else looks very happy and appeared to be on the re-bound.

Alk is currently at 3.8-4 dKH

The tank is normally at 8.6-9 dKH. I know the answer will be to bring it up slowly, but how slow are we talking? Over how long of a period should I look to raise my levels back up?

Normally I'm only dosing 25ml a day of ESV for alkalinity so I'm hoping this didn't happen too quickly.


Having all my beloved sps in under 40g of water has been stressing me out thinking about a situation just like this. Thanks for any help.

 

[Hitman]

I wouldn’t recommend over 1 DKH in a 24 hour period. With that said and being that low I think you may need to start out slower like 0.5 DKH for a day or two then bump it up to 1 DKH rise a day.

 

[Smite]

Thank you Hitman. I'm going to up my dosage by 10ml a day and monitor it closely for the first few days. Looking closer at the tank I can see some pieces are definitely stressing.

 

[ycnibrc]

Well but if u let the Coral sit in water with low alk it's not good either. I would do 50% water change and go from there.

 

[Hitman]

Keep doing what your doing. If you raise it to fast your corals will tell you. As everything in this stressful hobby slow and steady will prevail. There’s always someone here to help.

 

[Hitman]

Well but if u let the Coral sit in water with low alk it's not good either. I would do 50% water change and go from there.

No that would stress them even more do to his extremely low dkh. 10% maybe 50% would be certain death. We are only talking about 40 gallons way to fast of a parameter change.

 

[ReeferBean]

Dang! Or you can leave the doser where its at and change say 10 gallons every day or two depending on the alkalinity of new water.

 

[Hitman]

^ that would help but I was stay closer to 5 gallons at first.

 

[x2uranium]

I would just dose some to get you at least in the 6.5 range then bring it up from there with wcs Been there done that. Hopefully you won’t lose any more but again sometimes it will take a few weeks from the event to wipe out certain corals. The trick is to not let this happen. Something we never want to hear but I bet you will figure out a way for your tube to stay at the bottom of the container. This is the main reason of why I switched to a calcium reactor for my big tank. I have had this happen on three separate occasions. Too busy to check the containers when I was dosing.

 

[TheHarold]

I don't think 3.0dkh is possible to achieve in a reef tank. Test again, or with a different kit. @Randy Holmes-Farley ?

 

[Smite]

Took a few pictures incase I lose anything so why not share?

 

[MarinaP]

I would just dose some to get you at least in the 6.5 range then bring it up from there with wcs Been there done that. Hopefully you won’t lose any more but again sometimes it will take a few weeks from the event to wipe out certain corals. The trick is to not let this happen. Something we never want to hear but I bet you will figure out a way for your tube to stay at the bottom of the container. This is the main reason of why I switched to a calcium reactor for my big tank. I have had this happen on three separate occasions. Too busy to check the containers when I was dosing.

+1. I would bring it up to 6-6.5

 

[Smite]

I would just dose some to get you at least in the 6.5 range then bring it up from there with wcs Been there done that. Hopefully you won’t lose any more but again sometimes it will take a few weeks from the event to wipe out certain corals. The trick is to not let this happen. Something we never want to hear but I bet you will figure out a way for your tube to stay at the bottom of the container. This is the main reason of why I switched to a calcium reactor for my big tank. I have had this happen on three separate occasions. Too busy to check the containers when I was dosing.

I have a calcium reactor waiting under the stand of my future 180g. Loved it on my 100g, really haven't been a fan of dosers. Now, more than ever. I used rigid tubing to go I the container, I'm guessing I accidentally tugged the tubing at one point pulling it up.

I don't think 3.0dkh is possible to achieve in a reef tank. Test again, or with a different kit. @Randy Holmes-Farley ?

This kit read normally a week or so ago. I've test 3 times. I've got some fresh mixed salt so I test that to compare. The color started changing at 7.4 on the plunger (3.8 dKH) and was bright pink by 7.0 line. So its in that 3.8-4.5 range.

Salinity 1.026

 

[Smite]

Bringing the range up +- 2 dKH seems like I'd be asking for problems no? Thats a huge swing. I realize I'm well past dangerously low but man that freaks me out

 

[Sabellafella]

I've been slammed this last week with work. I've been walking by my frag tank thats holding all my ups until my 180 is built. Just visually checking top-off and dosing containers. My alk container was looking low but still had a 1/4 in there. I took the time to actually measure my alk with my salifert test kit.......I was VERY surprised to see it turn pink almost instantly! Apparently my dosing tube lifted in the container and has been running dry all week.

I lost a strawberry shortcake colony but it hadn't been looking good since I started my battle with AEFW. Everything else looks very happy and appeared to be on the re-bound.

Alk is currently at 3.8-4 dKH

The tank is normally at 8.6-9 dKH. I know the answer will be to bring it up slowly, but how slow are we talking? Over how long of a period should I look to raise my levels back up?

Normally I'm only dosing 25ml a day of ESV for alkalinity so I'm hoping this didn't happen too quickly.


Having all my beloved sps in under 40g of water has been stressing me out thinking about a situation just like this. Thanks for any help.

I had just forgot to top off my alk 3 weeks ago and went a week without alk. Dropped to 5.5 dkh, got a couple burnt tips but nothing too serious. I just dumped about 1 dkh worth of b ionic and continued water changes till it was back up to 9. I would add 10ml ontop of your daily dose, need to bring that up to at least 7 soon before stuff gets worse imo. just test everyday until your back to normal.

 

[Smite]

Thanks Sabellafella. I've upped my dose by 10ml. I've added 15ml to that today. I'll check where I'm at when I get back from work tonight, possibly add another 10-15ml depending on the level.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Anyone else ever been this low before?

I've had my water mixing for 30 minutes now, I'm gonna check my kit on that before I take off for work. Its hard to believe everything still looks okay with polyp extension, but then I've had colorful polyp extended sps RTN and look the same until the last pieces of flesh left

 

[x2uranium]

funny as it Is things look great with your low alk at the moment lol.. if only it could stay that low..

 

[jda]

I had my alk get down that low when my co2 cylinder ran out and I did not notice for a few days. I just dumped in some baking soda to get back up to 6.5ish in about 5 minutes. No issues at all. However, these acropora are in great condition for years and otherwise probably perfectly healthy. IMO, healthy corals can handle alk swings, but an alk swing can probably also finish off a coral that is on the brink.

I might suggest raising 1 dKh a day, but do it incrementally a few times a day and not all at once.

 

[Smite]

I had my alk get down that low when my co2 cylinder ran out and I did not notice for a few days. I just dumped in some baking soda to get back up to 6.5ish in about 5 minutes. No issues at all. However, these acropora are in great condition for years and otherwise probably perfectly healthy. IMO, healthy corals can handle alk swings, but an alk swing can probably also finish off a coral that is on the brink.

I might suggest raising 1 dKh a day, but do it incrementally a few times a day and not all at once.

I plan to adjust my doser accordingly. Have it dosing 12 small doses a day.

Some of these pieces are new wild from my LFS so im worried about them.

 

[Smite]

Dang. To frag or not to frag......

Came up a little quicker than i meant to 6.5 this morning. Most likely would have happend regardless.

What do you guys think, frag or superglue death ring? Sometimes I feel superglue can stop necrosis but not sure in this case.