Managed to throw my alk& Ca levels with careless maintenance !

[cracker]

So the other day I cleaned out the skimmer section & used a different brand of salt water to do it. I use Coral life brand salt in the 180 fish only . I use red sea salt in the 75. I didn't think it would hurt a thing. Man did I screw the balance ! Now my CA is sky high & Alk is way down .
I have new salt water with redsea ready for a w/t tomorrow.
My dilemma now is do I dose now to raise the ALK a bit? ( it's down from 8.1 to 6.8 now ) Or wait till after I do the water change tomorrow ? I think I should wait as everybody seems to be ok in the tank. Also I won't muck it up worse than it is now .
Anyway a lesson learned the hard way. I will pay attention to what I'm doing in the future !

 

[MnFish1]

Wouldn't it depend on how 'sky high' the calcium is before and after the water change - and the volume of water you changed? Its a little unclear in your post where you used which salt. I guess If everything looks good - I would recheck in the morning - likely - it will be fine - but again - I think it depends on how much you changed.

 

[cracker]

Ok I put coral life salt just under 15 gls into a 75 in which I use Red Sea regular salt. The alk went from 8.1 to 6.8 Ca went from 416 to 430 plus . Pretty big change over 15 gls I think. Thanks for the reply ,I'm getting over the panic now & will do a 25 gl w/t tomorrow and test again. As I was saying corals look ok . Need to be careful not to dose it up too fast. That's why I was considering raising it a little tonight.

 

[MnFish1]

Something should be wrong - though - if 15 gallons into a 75 gallon tank decreases the alkalinity that much. @Randy Holmes-Farley would be far better to answer this - but it seems odd if the salt was 'correct' and 'correctly mixed'. Could it be a error in the test - and I dont think thats a huge jump in calcium - depending on the test - it may be within the margin of error.

 

[cracker]

Agreed doesn't sound right. I need to figure the true amount of water changed. I admit it could have been more. It is on the mend very soon. unless I screwit up again ! LOL

 

[Sabellafella]

So the other day I cleaned out the skimmer section & used a different brand of salt water to do it. I use Coral life brand salt in the 180 fish only . I use red sea salt in the 75. I didn't think it would hurt a thing. Man did I screw the balance ! Now my CA is sky high & Alk is way down .
I have new salt water with redsea ready for a w/t tomorrow.
My dilemma now is do I dose now to raise the ALK a bit? ( it's down from 8.1 to 6.8 now ) Or wait till after I do the water change tomorrow ? I think I should wait as everybody seems to be ok in the tank. Also I won't muck it up worse than it is now .
Anyway a lesson learned the hard way. I will pay attention to what I'm doing in the future !

I actually got into a little issue like this just a week or so ago. I had some personal issues, and i completely forgot to top my 2 part off as its not much of a frequent aspect of my normal routine. Alk dropped to 6.7 in 5 days. Once i topped off my 2 part, my alk rose to about 9.5 in 4 days witch indicated the corals were NOT happy. It was my first alk swing , tank is upcomming 4 years now. But almost every single piece is completely fine. I had a tiny frag rtn that i sortove saved. And just a little stn on colonys thats already growing back. My tanks alk has not changed in 4 years, this was the first time something like this had happened and my tank was completely fine with it. I would take every precaution if necessary otherwise i think acting suddenly may lead to a risk. Im sure everything will be fine.