Kalk overdose, spiked pH 8.8

[Makara23]

HELP! My pH spiked from a low of 8.12 to 8.75 (current) as a result of kalk overdose. Something got in the main drain, causing the overflow box to fill up to the emergency drain. A little over a gallon of saturated kalk water from the ATO was dumped in to replace the extra volume taken up in the overflow box. Total system volume is about 60gal.

This happened 3 hours ago. Tank doesn’t look cloudy, fish are seemingly fine, most corals looks ok except for a couple euphyllia and gonis that are very retracted. A few trochus snails are either spawning or stressed. All my limpets are moving up, halfway out of the waterline, either to “escape” or it’s also triggering a spawning event (they’ve been shooting white milky stuff out of the water onto my floor).

My initial impulse was to do a 30% water change, but lucky me, this is the first time ever I’m completely out of salt. All stores currently closed, I won’t be home from work until tomorrow evening. Is there ANYTHING I can do in the meantime until I can buy more salt??

 

[Lavey29]

Sounds like your options are limited. PH usually drops overnight so I would just keep lights off and in night mode until you can do a water change. It's elevated but not super critical high. Keep skimmer running for aeration. One ml of distilled white vinegar per gallon can reduce PH too.

 

[Cichlid Convert]

Do you have a QT tank or another tank that you can take water from tonight to do a partial water change ? That might hold you till tomorrow evening. I hope all turns out well. Sorry this happened. Must be stressful.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Meh, you caught it relatively quick. I would allow for it to go down on its own...

In the mean time, remove the kalk from your top off and just use rodi.

And to be honest, I wouldn't add it back. Dose kalk separately from your ato.

There are so many reasons why dosing kalk via ato is a bad idea. You just discovered one of them.

Test your alk tonight and monitor tomorrow. If it stays high, then a waterchange might be in order

 

[trevorhiller]

To be honest there are people out there that run tanks at 8.8-8.9 intentionally with no ill reported effects. Now that wouldn't stop me from doing a water change as soon as you can as this was an abrupt change, but don't panic just yet.

I think I would be more worried about the fish than the corals. IMO a rapid pH decrease seems like it could be just as bad but I don't have experience with Kalk overdose.

Learn your lessons:
Always have salt water mixed or atleast on hand ready to mix.
Set Neptune Apex pH alarm at 8.55-8.60
Find a better way to dose Kalk.
Plan to make sure it can't happen again.

Edit: PS good luck!

 

[trevorhiller]

Just out of curiosity, what sort of overflow are you using? My primary drain and emergency drain are nearly the same level on my Cade so I'm curious how yours are so far apart. Huge overflow box?

 

[Makara23]

Sounds like your options are limited. PH usually drops overnight so I would just keep lights off and in night mode until you can do a water change. It's elevated but not super critical high. Keep skimmer running for aeration. One ml of distilled white vinegar per gallon can reduce PH too.

Thank you, this is golden. I turned off the fuge lights.

I have distilled vinegar that’s a couple years old, I just added 10ml. This is the equivalent of carbon dosing, so I didn’t want to go overboard, as this would deplete oxygen and chew up my nitrates (which is already low at 5ppm).

 

[Makara23]

Do you have a QT tank or another tank that you can take water from tonight to do a partial water change ? That might hold you till tomorrow evening. I hope all turns out well. Sorry this happened. Must be stressful.

I have a QT tank, this was a great idea and I thought about it. But I can't borrow water from it because I have two mandarins in there that I'm training to eat.

The alternative was to move the corals to the QT tank (although not all of them would fit), however the parameters here are unknown (most likely normal Ca and Alk, but high in PO4 and NO3). I’m not sure if corals will be more stressed in high pH or completely different parameters in the QT tank.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

I'd caution you from overreacting. There's a bigger concern that you're actions are going to make things worse.

8.75 pH isn't detrimental and more than likely nothing bad will happen. But if you start to overreact, things will just compound and "you're gonna have a bad day".

 

[TrevorHenryTDH]

Go fill up your jugs at scripps, free sea water. Then little water change but like 10%

 

[apb03]

Vinegar will drop your pH back down in a pinch, but you are probably OK to let it drop on its own.

 

[Makara23]

To be honest there are people out there that run tanks at 8.8-8.9 intentionally with no ill reported effects. Now that wouldn't stop me from doing a water change as soon as you can as this was an abrupt change, but don't panic just yet.

I think I would be more worried about the fish than the corals. IMO a rapid pH decrease seems like it could be just as bad but I don't have experience with Kalk overdose.

Learn your lessons:
Always have salt water mixed or atleast on hand ready to mix.
Set Neptune Apex pH alarm at 8.55-8.60
Find a better way to dose Kalk.
Plan to make sure it can't happen again.

Edit: PS good luck!

Just out of curiosity, what sort of overflow are you using? My primary drain and emergency drain are nearly the same level on my Cade so I'm curious how yours are so far apart. Huge overflow box?

Isn’t intentional pH 8.9 a little TOO high? That’s when plastic parts get brittle and massive amounts of precipitates deposits and coats all the equipment, no?

I have a Red Sea Reefer 250 G2, where it normally drains about halfway in the overflow box, and the emergency drain is almost to the top. The difference in volume looks like over a gallon.

 

[Makara23]

Meh, you caught it relatively quick. I would allow for it to go down on its own...

In the mean time, remove the kalk from your top off and just use rodi.

And to be honest, I wouldn't add it back. Dose kalk separately from your ato.

There are so many reasons why dosing kalk via ato is a bad idea. You just discovered one of them.

Test your alk tonight and monitor tomorrow. If it stays high, then a waterchange might be in order

I'd caution you from overreacting. There's a bigger concern that you're actions are going to make things worse.

8.75 pH isn't detrimental and more than likely nothing bad will happen. But if you start to overreact, things will just compound and "you're gonna have a bad day".

Thanks, the consensus is to let it naturally go down, but who knows how long that would take while everything in the tank is stressed. At what point is pH too high and start to cause precipitation? My other concern is that my pH only wanders about 0.10 from day to night with reverse cycle fuge light, so a huge prolonged spike like this might kill off more sensitive corals/fish.

I've only added 10ml of vinegar (proper amount would be about 50ml to bring down to "safe" levels), but I won't fiddle with it anymore.

Yes lesson very well learned. No more kalk in ATO. If something like this happens again, a 1 gallon salinity dilution from pure RO/DI isn’t nearly as bad as 1 gallon overdose of kalk. I just don't have room in the sump or cabinet for a dedicated kalk mixer or doser.

 

[Makara23]

Vinegar will drop your pH back down in a pinch, but you are probably OK to let it drop on its own.

Already done that out of panic based on the first thread response, but only added a fraction of what's needed. My system can't take a massive carbon dose, that might compound another issue.

 

[gbroadbridge]

HELP! My pH spiked from a low of 8.12 to 8.75 (current) as a result of kalk overdose. Something got in the main drain, causing the overflow box to fill up to the emergency drain. A little over a gallon of saturated kalk water from the ATO was dumped in to replace the extra volume taken up in the overflow box. Total system volume is about 60gal.

This happened 3 hours ago. Tank doesn’t look cloudy, fish are seemingly fine, most corals looks ok except for a couple euphyllia and gonis that are very retracted. A few trochus snails are either spawning or stressed. All my limpets are moving up, halfway out of the waterline, either to “escape” or it’s also triggering a spawning event (they’ve been shooting white milky stuff out of the water onto my floor).

My initial impulse was to do a 30% water change, but lucky me, this is the first time ever I’m completely out of salt. All stores currently closed, I won’t be home from work until tomorrow evening. Is there ANYTHING I can do in the meantime until I can buy more salt??

Don't panic.

It'll be fine if you leave it alone.

 

[Makara23]

Don't panic.

It'll be fine if you leave it alone.

At what pH will I not be fine? First time I've had a pH spike, so I don't have a reference point to what's OK and when things will start dying.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

What Your Grandmother Never Told You About Lime by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

What Else Does Limewater Do In An Aquarium? Raise pH Whether You Want It To Or Not

Since limewater has a pH above 12 (even when a reasonable amount of vinegar is added), it causes a substantial rise in pH when added to a reef aquarium. This attribute has both positive and negative aspects. It limits the speed at which limewater can be added without raising the tank’s pH too much (discussed above). It also can be a serious problem in accidental overdosing, where the pH can rise very high. Often, this overdosing can lead to the aquarium turning white like milk as calcium carbonate precipitates throughout the water column.

In such cases of acute overdose, here is my advice:

1. If the pH is 8.5 or lower (as it often is since a precipitation event itself reduces pH even if it was much higher to start with), there is little that can or needs to be done. Just wait a few days for the white calcium carbonate to slowly disappear. A water change is not necessary, although once the water is clear, testing calcium and especially alkalinity is in order (don’t bother to test the cloudy water as it will give false high readings as these tests detect solids even though they are not truly in solution). Few aquarists suffer the loss of organisms from such events. I’ve had several such events without any apparent losses.

2. If the pH is above 8.5, some action to reduce the pH is warranted. The higher it is, the faster and greater the needed action. Since such events may happen when few tools are available to solve them (e.g., New Year's morning when few stores are open), I’ll provide a number of options, although some are better than others. In all cases, reduce the pH only to 8.5 to avoid overshooting.

The best option is to add carbon dioxide, either by bubbling the gas directly, or by adding soda water/seltzer (or blowing into a skimmer inlet if it is your only option). At least in the normal aquarium pH range, a teaspoon of soda water per gallon of tank water will lower pH by a couple of tenths of a pH unit. Overshooting with carbon dioxide, while undesirable, is less of a concern than is overshooting with any other option.

A second option is to add vinegar. Be especially careful to not overshoot pH 8.5 or so, because when bacteria begin to metabolize the acetate, the resulting CO2 will further lower the pH, and oxygen will be consumed (equation (14)). For this reason, it is especially important to maintain aeration when using vinegar in such a fashion. I’ve added vinegar to my aquarium in similar situations without difficulty, although the pH was only marginally high and I did not need to add much.

A third rung of options involves adding a mineral acid such as muriatic acid (HCl or hydrochloric acid) or sulfuric acid. I’ve added HCl to my aquarium in similar situations without difficulty. When performing such a mineral acid treatment, be very careful not to overshoot, and to monitor the pH during any acid additions. I would intervene in this fashion only if I could monitor the pH in real time, and could add the acid to a high flow area far from any organism. Diluting the acid in water (say, 20:1 or 100:1) prior to adding it to the tank is highly recommended for the safety of both the aquarist and the tank’s inhabitants (diluting vinegar, which is already dilute, isn’t necessary). One other drawback to adding a mineral acid is that it reduces the alkalinity. In such a case, the result may be elevated calcium and reduced alkalinity that will require significant correction.

 

[trevorhiller]

Isn’t intentional pH 8.9 a little TOO high? That’s when plastic parts get brittle and massive amounts of precipitates deposits and coats all the equipment, no?

I have a Red Sea Reefer 250 G2, where it normally drains about halfway in the overflow box, and the emergency drain is almost to the top. The difference in volume looks like over a gallon.

Too high for me, yes. But here's a live stream showing it:

At what pH will I not be fine? First time I've had a pH spike, so I don't have a reference point to what's OK and when things will start dying.

I'm not sure if anyone knows the pH that is "not fine." Mine hits just over 8.5 sometimes dosing Kalk and NaOH and everything is definitely ok with that. I believe the above reference is highest pH I've heard of with no ill reported effects, but yes precipitation is more likely at higher pHs.

 

[David_CO]

My acro frag system has extremely high PH and had run this way for several months. As the alkalinity consumption has gone up the Kalk dosing has gotten pretty significant. Between fans and extreme flow I evaporate over 2G a day and match with kalk. I dose additional alk and cal during the photo period (60ml of each). Interestingly if I use soda ash or bicarb had almost no effect on the daily high ph which was surprising to me.

I have no additional precipitation or any other draw backs I can account for at the time. the only thing I would consider a bit of a negative is my phosphates are really hard to keep up. I believe the kalk has a pathway to cause it to precipitate or something. I do wonder/worry about unforeseen issues as all my research has shown this is largely uncharted territory.

FWIW I run low/average alk values

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

My acro frag system has extremely high PH and had run this way for several months. As the alkalinity consumption has gone up the Kalk dosing has gotten pretty significant. Between fans and extreme flow I evaporate over 2G a day and match with kalk. I dose additional alk and cal during the photo period (60ml of each). Interestingly if I use soda ash or bicarb had almost no effect on the daily high ph which was surprising to me.

I have no additional precipitation or any other draw backs I can account for at the time. the only thing I would consider a bit of a negative is my phosphates are really hard to keep up. I believe the kalk has a pathway to cause it to precipitate or something. I do wonder/worry about unforeseen issues as all my research has shown this is largely uncharted territory.

FWIW I run low/average alk values

When did you last calibrate the pH probe?