Inexplicably woke up in the middle of the night to discover that my XP Aqua ATO had malfunctioned and dumped two weeks worth of kalk from the stirrer into my 100 gallon tank. Everything; fish, corals, and rocks covered in precipitate. Water cloudy to the point of opacity. Tried filtering to no avail. This will be a complete tear down and start from scratch. Was able to save one angel and a couple of clowns, but everything else is gone, including an RBTA and Kole tang that I prized. Lots of work ahead. Covid payment will just cover replacing most of the livestock.
Kalk Apocalypse
- Thread starter ubiq
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ZoWhat
10K Club member
Dang sorry to hear this
Kalkwasser usually mixes out to around 50dKH.... im surprised you didn't lose everything 100% due to the chemical burn of such extremely high Alkalinity
Is there some sort of Apex probe thst can alert you the next time around?
Kalkwasser usually mixes out to around 50dKH.... im surprised you didn't lose everything 100% due to the chemical burn of such extremely high Alkalinity
Is there some sort of Apex probe thst can alert you the next time around?
monkeyCmonkeyDo
7500 Club Member
Sorry for your loss. Gonna hook up my amazon special ato here soon so wish me luck. Lol.
D
D
This was my first thought, too. pH went from 8.2 to 9.75. A mega water change brought it back within the safe range, but the real problem was the precipitate covering everything including gills. Mostly too fine to filter effectively.
The Apex pH probe may have been what awakened me, I'm not sure. By the time I got downstairs the damage was done. The ATO had just begun to overflow the sump so there were a number of alarms going off.
Best of luck. Don't forget a leak detector.
Pntbll687
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So was your ato pump feeding directly into the stirer??
If you use kalk again, just use a dosing pump to feed the stirer, and keep the ato separate.
What's the plan moving forward? Sounds like it's time to update/upgrade equipment otf needed
If you use kalk again, just use a dosing pump to feed the stirer, and keep the ato separate.
What's the plan moving forward? Sounds like it's time to update/upgrade equipment otf needed
