I messed up!

Newbie1 · Jul 26, 2020

Ok long story short, I dosed my reef with A & B with out measuring (I know how irresponsible this was, so let’s keep the name calling to a minimum).
So this is what I got:
Phos- .49
Salinity - 1.024
Calcium - 750ish (I believe)
DKH - 9.8
Temp - 78.9
PH - 8.02
Orp- 285

in total this is approximately 100 gallon tank mixed reef. Running skimmer, algae scrubber, gfo&carbo media reactor.

please let me know if I’m gonna wake up tomorrow and see all my fish floating......

piranhaman00 · Jul 26, 2020

I don’t see anything that would kill fish, what was it before is needed to answer.

revhtree · Jul 26, 2020

I really don’t see you’ll have any issues.

musicreefer320 · Jul 26, 2020

What were your levels before?

vetteguy53081 · Jul 26, 2020

Should be fine

Newbie1 · Jul 27, 2020

The 23rd I tested.
Cal - 370
DKH - 8.4
PHOS - .73
Salinity- 1.024

A calcium of 750 will not stress the fish and kill them? Not to mention the change in a matter of a day pretty much.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 27, 2020

I suspect the high calcium result may be test error.

You'd need to dose a lot of calcium supplement to raise it that much.

musicreefer320 · Jul 27, 2020

Newbie1 said:
The 23rd I tested.
Cal - 370
DKH - 8.4
PHOS - .73
Salinity- 1.024

A calcium of 750 will not stress the fish and kill them? Not to mention the change in a matter of a day pretty much.

If you have corals, that’s a pretty significant change.... I would be concerned. Fish not so much.

Newbie1 · Jul 27, 2020

musicreefer320 said:
If you have corals, that’s a pretty significant change.... I would be concerned. Fish not so much.

Ok, I had my son send me pics of the tank, while I'm at work lol and everything looks fine and striving. Lets just say I did the test RIGHT, you're stating I should be concerned with the corals. would I see something the next day? or what should I expect? or is there something I can do to reverse this?

musicreefer320 · Jul 27, 2020

Newbie1 said:
Ok, I had my son send me pics of the tank, while I'm at work lol and everything looks fine and striving. Lets just say I did the test RIGHT, you're stating I should be concerned with the corals. would I see something the next day? or what should I expect? or is there something I can do to reverse this?

Sometimes it can take weeks for corals (especially sps) to show signs

jccaclimber · Jul 28, 2020

Assuming it isn’t test error, I’m genuinely surprised it went that high. I had an oops a couple years ago in which I flipped an Apex dosing pump outlet to On, then remembered to turn it off the next morning when I woke up. Fortunately my calcium was low (350ish) Beforehand, and so it only ended up around 500.
I’d expect some to precipitate out, the rest you can gradually water change out. Or skim really wet and replace with salt water as needed.
Obviously you’ll want to use a salt with low calcium. Watch your all through this.
While you never can be sure. If the corals look ok 24 hours out and you don’t induce any all swings you might just be ok.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 28, 2020

Newbie1 said:
Ok, I had my son send me pics of the tank, while I'm at work lol and everything looks fine and striving. Lets just say I did the test RIGHT, you're stating I should be concerned with the corals. would I see something the next day? or what should I expect? or is there something I can do to reverse this?

I don't think there is convincing evidence that high calcium itself causes problems.

musicreefer320 · Jul 28, 2020

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
I don't think there is convincing evidence that high calcium itself causes problems.

Was thinking the increase in alk

Cell · Jul 28, 2020

Generally, how high can calcium get in an average reef tank before it precipitates?

Newbie1 · Jul 28, 2020

I'll retest tonight and keep you guys updated.

h2so4hurts · Jul 28, 2020

Just don't dose any calcium until it gets to where you want and you'll be fine, most likely. Fish will definitely not care at all.

Cory · Jul 28, 2020

Just do some water changes. Big ones like 50 % x2.

jccaclimber · Jul 28, 2020

While 1.4 dKH in one shot isn't ideal, I've known a number of people who did that daily until they eventually bought dosing pumps. It may cause some unhappiness, but I'd expect that to be apparent soon if not now, and there isn't much to be done about it anyways. This is not a tank crashing event.
Your end alk result isn't outside the normal range, and as such I'd rather let it come down naturally rather than force a sudden swing back down. I would watch alk closely as things return to normal. My concern is that it may decrease faster than usual as calcium precipitates out.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 29, 2020

Cell said:
Generally, how high can calcium get in an average reef tank before it precipitates?

Calcium is a weak driver of precipitation.

Each of these 5 scenarios have exactly the same tendency to precipitate calcium carbonate. As you can see, pH is the biggest driver, followed by alkalinity. In simple terms, a rise of 0.3 pH units is equivalent to a doubling of either alkalinity (say, 7 to 14 dKH) or calcium (say, 410 to 820 ppm).

pH = 8.2	pH = 8.2
Calcium = 410 ppm	Calcium = 820 ppm
Alkalinity = 14 dKH	Alkalinity = 7 dKH

pH = 8.0	pH = 8.7
Calcium = 410 ppm	Calcium = 410 ppm
Alkalinity = 22.4 dKH	Alkalinity = 7 dKH

pH = 8.45
Calcium = 410 ppm
Alkalinity = 11.8 dKH

Newbie1 · Aug 4, 2020

Ok last night (08/03/2020 @ 1920 hours) I was able to test the parameters. they are as followed:

Phosphate - .45
Salinity - 1.024
Calcium - 430
DKH - 10.6
Magnesium - 1400
OPR - 283
PH - 8.12
Temp - 78.6

3 of my 5 BTAs appeared to get unhappy. two of them appeared to recover. BUT I think one may have perished. I'll confirm tonight.