900ml of alk in a 40 gallon tank.

[Bugeater281]

Hopefully I didn’t nuke my tank. I was manually adding some alk with my doser when my son started screaming. So I did the dad thing and went and checked on him. Come back down and here my dosing pump. Oh crap. I ended up dumping around 30ounces of brs alk mix into my 40g tank. It was clowdy, white and had chucks of alk all over the tank. I only have 20g of saltwater mixed at the moment. 40g alk was a 8.5. But my saltwater is 11. ****.

luckily for me I have a 200g system 10 feet away. And since it’s just fish at the moment(no coral yet), it’s alk was fairly low, around 6.5.

Well I’m now syphon if water between the two tanks. Based on my calculations, this should bring the alk to around 12dkh. While this sucks, after a 50% water Change on The 40g. The alk was over what the test could test.

I’m kinda venting, I have a 23head torch, 5 head torch, 30+ head Duncan, a couple small acros and misc coral in that tank. I’m really hoping I don’t loose them. The ph jumped to over 9.5. Ph is back to 8, alk it down to 13. While there’s still going to be an alk spike. I hope my coral make it. This has all happened In the last hour. So hopefully I didn’t make it worst by dropping it so fast. But then again, they would have died if I left it.

Im glad fish don’t mind alk changes .

 

[Bugeater281]

Ph has stabilized(added about a cup of vinegar). Has been a ph of 8 for the last 45 min, tank has cleared up. Coral Havnt completely pulled in. They won’t be happy. But they may survive. I’ll test the alk in about 30 min and see where I stand. Has my rodi pumping out water so if another water change is needed it’s ready.

Thanks for listening to this idiots Ted talk.

 

[Miami Reef]

You have a quick reaction response which saved you! Excellent work on bouncing back and not panicking!

I hope they pull through. I think most people would say to leave the system as it is and let the corals consume the rest of the alk. Keep as much stress low as possible.

 

[Bugeater281]

You have a quick reaction response which saved you! Excellent work on bouncing back and not panicking!

I hope they pull through. I think most people would say to leave the system as it is and let the corals consume the rest of the alk. Keep as much stress low as possible.

I would usually be in that crowd. However I would be surprised if I brought my alk up to 20-30dkh. I do t think anything g would have survived. I was working on bringing the 200g systems alk up anyways. So I new the tank needed around 600ml of alk. So I went for it. I probably could have moved the coral into the new tank. But it’s only been running 6 months. And has no sand, so it’s still stabilizing.

 

[Bugeater281]

So far, the coral loom mad. But I’m impressed they are out as much as they are. I just took these photos. It’s been around a hour and a half since the overdose.

 

[Miami Reef]

I didn’t mean to imply that you should have left the alk at 20-30. I meant to say to leave it where it is now (12-13dkh) and let the corals consume it instead of changing more chemistry which corals will have to readjust to.

 

[blasterman]

Muriatic acid laying around for alk dosing pump errors. Worth a jug of insurance under the sink.

 

[Bugeater281]

I didn’t mean to imply that you should have left the alk at 20-30. I meant to say to leave it where it is now (12-13dkh) and let the corals consume it instead of changing more chemistry which corals will have to readjust to.

That’s the plan. I’ve learned not to overcorrect. I will let the alk drop back to 11(I’ve been working slowly to get it to this, switched to tropic Marin pro).

 

[Bugeater281]

Muriatic acid laying around for alk dosing pump errors. Worth a jug of insurance under the sink.

I have some in the garage. But that seemed extreme. With another tank 10 feet away. I figured that was a safer method. I wasn’t sure how much acid to add. And I didn’t want to tank the ph in both tanks.

 

[Miami Reef]

I keep my alk at 11! I’m hopeful that this will increase my coral’s growth rate.

 

[Bugeater281]

Looks like ph is stable.

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

11. Take it down to 11. I left mine at 12 or 13 with low nutrients after running carbon for 5 days. Ouch. My mistake.
Sucks man. Id suggest another 100% wc on ur 40b. Hths
D

 

[Bugeater281]

11. Take it down to 11. I left mine at 12 or 13 with low nutrients after running carbon for 5 days. Ouch. My mistake.
Sucks man. Id suggest another 100% wc on ur 40b. Hths
D

All’s down to around 11.5. My nitrates are around 20. So my tank should be fine with the higher alk. I’ll probably feed some reef roofs just to make sure there’s some phosphate. I really need a Hanna checker for phosphate

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Im not a supporter or believer in chasing nitrate and phosphates. Long as u got some. Lol.
D

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Mine was 12< for 2 weeks or more. Lol.
I was being lazy and positive about my tank absorbtion rate. After the 20g wc on 160-180g volume i saw improvement.
D

 

[Bugeater281]

Update.

no losses. Acros are definitely not happy. And have some white on the skeletons. But it’s seems to stop spreading. The other corals look like nothing happened.

 

[dedragon]

yea those acros are the worst with alk swings, i think you have it all corrected now, but if you have it i would use amino acid supplement to help em out a bit. I have also used koral recover with good results if seeing rtn, i think it ticked off my clam a bunch though