HElP! My Calcium Reactor Dumped Solution and DKH 14

[Herby’s reef]

Many of you have been helping me with advice for my new calcium reactor, but now I possibly have a problem! When I went to bed my effluent was dripping at about 50 drops per second, well I woke up at 1 am and checked it for some reason and it was just a constant flow. Now my dkh has jumped from 9 when I checked before bed to 14 now! Will this kill my fish and coral. What about my squamousa clam? I have mostly lps with a few birds nest sps and one acropora. Most look ok now. Duncans are closed, but lights are out as it is 2 am and they may just be closed because of that. Should I do anything other than shutting calcium reactor off, which I have already done?

Thanks in advance

David

 

[Jason mack]

You can always do a couple of 10% wc too bring it back down .. fish Will be ok , Im not a clam expert so i cant comment on that .. do you have any sps corals in Your tank ,an alk swing could affect them

 

[Herby’s reef]

Mainly lps. I have 3 birdsnest acropora, one red dragon acrapora, and two montipora. The clam would be my biggest concern though. Blue squamosa and probably my favorite thing in the tank

 

[Jason mack]

Ok well birds nests will let you know first if there’s a problem , they are like canary’s in the mines ,how big is your clam , if it’s 4inch or bigger then they tend too feed more from light / photosynthesis than the water column.. so I’m not sure how they react too an alk swing , I’m sure someone in the know will jump in and answer soon
#ReefSquad ,

 

[Coralfuture]

Ok well birds nests will let you know first if there’s a problem , they are like canary’s in the mines ,

This is such a true comment!
I wouldn't worry too much about it as doing something drastic may make an issue out of something that wasn't going to be an issue.

 

[Synodontis]

Hi,
If your dkh has jumped 5 points in such a short time I would be thinking the tank is in some sort of shock. If you could lower dkh to say 10 over 4-5 hours, everything would cope better as nothing would have acclimatised to 14 in a short amount of time. A somewhat quick return to your start point may still show signs tho. I would only do this as it was a sharp rise very quickly.
We have struggled with dkh swings & had SPS rtn up to 2 weeks later once everything has been stable.
If it was a 5 point rise over a week, then you would be best to lower it slowly over 2 weeks.

Good luck with it all, hope the clam comes through

 

[Sabellafella]

Many of you have been helping me with advice for my new calcium reactor, but now I possibly have a problem! When I went to bed my effluent was dripping at about 50 drops per second, well I woke up at 1 am and checked it for some reason and it was just a constant flow. Now my dkh has jumped from 9 when I checked before bed to 14 now! Will this kill my fish and coral. What about my squamousa clam? I have mostly lps with a few birds nest sps and one acropora. Most look ok now. Duncans are closed, but lights are out as it is 2 am and they may just be closed because of that. Should I do anything other than shutting calcium reactor off, which I have already done?

Thanks in advance

David

I would just shut the co2 off to the reactor for the time being. And test alk 2 or 3 times a day to see if it's dropping. Your fish and most likely your clam will be fine, your coral may not be a guarantee. Alot of people been through something like this, going to take alot of spectating untill things ring back to normal.

 

[Herby’s reef]

Thanks everyone. For now, everything looks fine. Nothing has changed colors and polyps are all out. I am going to do a water change and hope everything is fine

 

[Humblefish]

Thanks everyone. For now, everything looks fine. Nothing has changed colors and polyps are all out. I am going to do a water change and hope everything is fine

Check your pH too

 

[Herby’s reef]

I have a ph probe on my apex. Surprisingly ph is a solid 8 and did not budge!

 

[Rick.45cal]

I’ll echo what Sabellafella said, since you’ve shut down the reactor I would just be patient and let the alkalinity come down on it’s own. Any sudden changes are just going to complicate things. keep testing your alkalinity and be patient.

I would use the off time on the reactor to get the effluent rate of the reactor dialed in, so when you start introducing CO2 again (after your alkainity finally drops) that you won’t have to worry about a similar event occuring.

 

[Herby’s reef]

I’ll echo what Sabellafella said, since you’ve shut down the reactor I would just be patient and let the alkalinity come down on it’s own. Any sudden changes are just going to complicate things. keep testing your alkalinity and be patient.

I would use the off time on the reactor to get the effluent rate of the reactor dialed in, so when you start introducing CO2 again (after your alkainity finally drops) that you won’t have to worry about a similar event occuring.

Thanks everyone for the advice. I did a 10% water change and waited and dkh is 10.8 this am. So far no losses! Good idea to use the time I have to practice getting the hang of the effluent rate. I am usually pretty good at dripping medications in, as I give anesthesia for a living. Thank goodness this was not a patient! Of course I never go to sleep on that job! My theory on what happened is :
Having never done this before and from advice from a lfs employee, I was running co2 way to fast. About 4-5 bubbles per second. I had zeomag in the media which I read can keep the ph high for a day or 2 and I could not get the ph in the reactor down without this fast rate. With all this co2, my effluent line was full of air, which caused my drops per second to be off what they normally would be. Well, before I went to bed I turned the co2 way down because the ph had finally started to stay low with normal co2 amounts. When the air cleared the line the flow went from 30 drops per second to a constant flow. I am so lucky that I woke up at 1 am and decided to check it, or things could have been so bad. I have to admit I am a bit nervous to start it up again. I ordered a needle valve for the effluent line, the one that came with it is a ball valve and very hard to adjust.

Thanks so much for all the advice. You guys are awesome and I really appreciate it.

David

 

[lapin]

Sounds like you are good to go now. You might look around your office see if there is a old working peristaltic pump you can grab. That would solve your ball / needle valve issue.

 

[Herby’s reef]

So with a peristaltic pump, would I just set a rate on the pump and attach it to the water intake on the reactor? Then I could deliver exact amounts like an IV pump? If so, that sounds great!

David

 

[lapin]

So with a peristaltic pump, would I just set a rate on the pump and attach it to the water intake on the reactor? Then I could deliver exact amounts like an IV pump? If so, that sounds great!
David

****This is copied form a thread on another forum about the masterflex peristaltic pumps and reactor set up****
I push through and haven't had any issues, but Mark is saying if you pull through the reactor with the CP pump in stead of pushing through, you avoid possibly overpowering the calcium reactors seals (O-Rings, tubing connectors,etc) if the output of the reactor clogs up, since the CP pump won't be pushing water towards a clogged up effluent line reactor.

No real benefit of pushing water vs pulling through a reactor that I can see. Pulling is probably the safest way. Probably just not done a lot because it would appear a bit counter intuitive if you have always fed from a pump or manifold (pushing water through).