2 part overdose...

bobssecrtsn · Oct 3, 2012

hey guys. im in the middle of cycling my tank.. my nitrites are at .25ppms. now and turned my dosers on once in a while and yesterday i forgot to turn them off. i overdosed 18 ounces of ca and alk in my cycling tank.

woke up this morning with a very cloudy tank. my glass is white. i had to use a razor blade to scrape it all off. question is theres some parts thats really hard to scrape off. will this be removed from the water column? ATM i dont want to do a w/c because it will mess up my cycle (w/c to lower alk/ca)

should i leave it? or try to scrape everything off with a razor blade?

Alkamist · Oct 3, 2012

Why were you dosing durring your cycle? but water changes are your best bet

Clearwater · Oct 3, 2012

Well at least u hadno livestock in the tank (I hope) . Lesson learned :sad:

bobssecrtsn · Oct 3, 2012

no livestock whatsoever. i was dosing microbactor 7? its bacteria in a bottle!

so your saying i should do a water change? wouldnt doing a waterchange remove my nitrites. thus not completing my cycle?

mcarroll · Oct 3, 2012

Man....I've been through this (to some extents still going through it) and have a recommendation that you won't like....

A) Water changes and interrupting your cycle may be the least of your concerns, so I'd start with water changes right now. The bigger the better.....100% would be perfect if all you have is live rock.

B) All that white stuff is your two-part in the process of turning into chalk - on your glass, in your plumbing and in your pumps. If you use the glass you had to scrape as example, the crust should/could be the same is the other places I mentioned. Even if you don't see any white buildup, there's still going to be some - initial layers are pretty transparent, but make additional laters deposit much faster, so you want to remove them now while it's easy and no harm has been caused. I would take all the pumps apart and at least soak the impeller and impeller-well in straight vinegar for an hour or two. If you have any small openings in your plumbing as in a spray bar, or hole for a siphon-break, double check them to assure they're still clear!

Hopefully that's the end of the story for you and the tank will be nice and stable from here on out! (Goes without saying to be more careful next time, but just the same: BE MORE CAREFUL NEXT TIME!) ;-)

-Matt

P.S. Just a funny, sort-of-appropriate aside... Lazy people often wonder in forums like this why they can "do nothing and the tank does well". It's because stability is the #1 best thing for a reef, and way more often than we'd like to admit when we get involved (especially if the plan or equipment has any complexity at all), we goof things up as much as we set them right. Lazy people have stability nailed down and completely avoid the second part!