I mixed buffer with calcium and added to my tank!

[OldGoat]

As the title says I was trying to shortcut feeding and dosing tonight so I mixed phyto, oysterfest, calcium and marine buffer together and added to the tank. I did not notice how thick it had all become until I had about 3/4 of the mixture in the tank and saw the big white foamy chunks. My BTA has shriveled to almost nothing, the hammer and the frogspawn each shut down completely a couple heads, the acan, zoas and mushroom seem unaffected.......What should I do NOW?

 

[OldGoat]

So I am searching the internet and so far all I have found are directions to NOT mix calcium and buffer together, but I haven't found any idea of what to do if your an idiot and do it anyway.....anyone?

 

[Humblefish]

What's probably happening is precipitate (white chunks) from the calcium and buffer is hitting your corals. Is the water clear or cloudy?

 

[OldGoat]

It was very cloudy for maybe ten minutes but it is mostly clear now and the bta and the frogspawn are starting to open up a bit. This is my wife's tank and I was "helping" terrified I might have killed everything in her tank

 

[Humblefish]

It was very cloudy for maybe ten minutes but it is mostly clear now and the bta and the frogspawn are starting to open up a bit. This is my wife's tank and I was "helping" terrified I might have killed everything in her tank

You never want to dump supplements directly into your tank. Always use a reactor or at the very least, drip a premixed solution in slowly.

Right now you want to test alkalinity, calcium, magnesium to see how much they've been impacted.

 

[OldGoat]

Humblefish, Thanks for the replies and the info. I have no testing capability, we take water to LFS to get tested weekly. I hope first thing tomorrow won't be too late to take action. We have dosed calcium and buffer directly for quite a while, i guess we have been lucky until tonight. Neither of our tanks have a sump so I will work on rigging something up to accommodate the "drip in" method going forward.

 

[Humblefish]

Neither of our tanks have a sump so I will work on rigging something up to accommodate the "drip in" method going forward.

+

Mix your solution in a jug, shake well, crimp the airline tubing and gravity drip feed it into your tank(s).

 

[OldGoat]

+

Mix your solution in a jug, shake well, crimp the airline tubing and gravity drip feed it into your tank(s).

Super cool! Thanks a million!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It's no problem to dose alk and calcium after mixing them together, but it is useless.

It just makes harmless calcium carbonate (like some extra fine sand).

 

[Humblefish]

Personally, I'm a fan of dosing kalk i.e. Calcium hydroxide. Helps maintain both your alk and calcium.

 

[OldGoat]

Personally, I'm a fan of dosing kalk i.e. Calcium hydroxide. Helps maintain both your alk and calcium.

So if we switched to kalk would that eliminate the need for a buffer and a calcium/magnesium supplement?

 

[Humblefish]

So if we switched to kalk would that eliminate the need for a buffer and a calcium/magnesium supplement?

Kalk, by itself, doesn't always eliminate the need to dose other supplements. It all depends how much alk + calcium demand your tank requires. And it does nothing for magnesium.