2-part nearly killed my corals

[ZoWhat]

No one seems to mention Alk poisoning (super high dKH) if you dont know what you're doing with 2part solution!

I tried dosing 2part in EQUAL AMTS without fully checking what my true uptake of the 2-elements were daily or even weekly.

"Uptake" meaning = the amount of the element (calc or alk) absorbed by your corals daily/weekly....that in turn needs an EXACT amount of the particular 2part solution to replenish without OVER-REPLENISHING!

I should have known better.....:mad:..... but got lazy and just threw in EQUAL amts of 2-part while only testing those elements every 2-weeks.

It didn't take but a short amt of time for my Alk to hit a dangerously high 16+dKH ....because my tank is mostly zoas and palys with almost nothing in the way of SPS.

So my Alk uptake is hardly anything. Zoas and Palys must not hardly use any Alk in their metabolism

My laziness in just throwing in equal dosing of the 2part was poisoning my tank on the Alk side of dosing.

It finally nearly wiped my corals out with my dKH peaking at 17.4 before I did a 50% waterchange in panic mode :eek:

Luckily zoas and palys can take a high Alk for short extended periods of time.

So my advice is if you start 2-parting you should:

1) know generally what your daily/weekly uptake of Calcium and Alkalinity are....and adjust accordingly. Not a good idea to just "wing it" throwing in equal ml amounts...but use specific ml amts of part1 and part2 to separately keep Calc and Alk in range

2) if you 2part, testing for those elements should be an ongoing every-3-day regiment. Uptake values change over time and your dKH can jump over 12 before you know it. I definitely would not find your uptake-values over 1-2 months and then get lazy and stick to those dosing amts for months going forward.

Always test, test test, thruout your 2part regiment




.

 

[HotRocks]

Also soft coral and LPS don't really require dosing. SPS corals are what require two part.

I would recommend daily testing until you have your consumption nailed down precisely. After that weekly because as corals grow you will be required to increase your dosing to compensate for consumption.

 

[4n2xtacy]

Wow, thanks for sharing that. Thank God your corals survived. I got all my dosing equipment ready but still haven't used anything yet. I do water test everyday for the past 2weeks and my par barely moves. Not every tank needs dosing, if your corals aren't taking up much, a regular water change is enough to replenish your elements. Its important that people know not to dose what they do not test. Once again thanks for sharing and reefsafe...

 

[Crabs McJones]

Glad you caught it before any real damage was done :) @HotRocks pretty much nailed it above :)

 

[HotRocks]

Glad you caught it before any real damage was done :) @HotRocks pretty much nailed it above :)

I'm a @Crabs McJones SPS trainee :). He knows his stuff!

 

[Tailfisher]

Seems we all learn the hard way in this day and age of technology and busy lives trying to keep up with the pace of LIFE in general.

 

[CeeGee]

I have to test daily at the same time every day or thereabouts as I have the opposite problem.

There is very little alk in the water overall and if my Corals start growing faster or slow their growth either way my tank could be dead in a day or two. Had a real close call recently. I ran out of 2 part and I had no idea. Caught it the next day and my dKh had dropped over 2 points.

Now you understand why their is so much hype for the trident. Too high alk things die. Too low alk things die.

 

[hart24601]

Good advise. I generally suggest knowing (via testing) everything you dose in the tank and if you don't or can't test for it, you don't need it. OD can happen with pretty much everything in our systems be it 2 part, calcium reactor, trace elements, phosphate removal/supplementation....

 

[MTBake]

I recently lost a couple acros because my alk consumption increased. Alk was 5.6dkh at its lowest. Acros didn't like that at all.

I recommend testing often when dosing anything into your tank.

 

[Scorpius]

I'd wager to say most tanks will need 2-part/kalkwasser once coraline algae starts growing. Coraline can suck up the calcium and alkalinity like no other.

 

[Kmsutows]

SPS and LPS use alk and cal to build their skeleton. Also, in case you werent aware make sure you dont add them at the same time or they will react with each other and precipitate out that's why they come in 2 bottles. Spice it out 5 min or so

 

[W1ngz]

Glad you caught it before it did any damage. But...
Literally every 2-part guide, documentation and product page I've ever seen always starts off with determining consumption and dosage. I'm a bit lost as how anyone can miss that.

 

[Tamberav]

Have to agree with poster above. The guides and videos have a person figure out consumption.

I have seen a person dose kalk without testing on LFS advise which lead to high alk so I guess it happens.