Alk emergency

[Jahalu]

So, exactly how low can alk drop without causing issues? I did not realize that my eshopps dosing pump tube connection had developed a crack. Long story short, alk line lost its prime and wasn’t dosing for about 10 days. (I know, I should have noticed sooner, but well....I didn’t.) Anyway, right now I checked and I’m at 5.2. I have a 70g mixed reef. Funny thing, all coral, both SPS and LPS look fine as of now. I manually dosed one day’s worth (20ml) of alk. I don’t want to bring it up too fast. Any thoughts? Should I be doing more?

 

[Kershaw]

I’m not sure how long you should take to raise it. But slow is good. I have had alk as low as 6 with no loss just no growth. If It came down slow then I imagine your corals will be fine. Don’t need to stress them by over doing it bringing it back up.

 

[sbash]

Definitely raise it slowly, too fast will cause some big issues (check my build thread in a couples weeks to see what happens). Aiming for a raise of .5 dkh per day is probably safe.

 

[Wiskey]

Alk drop will cause less issues than a spike up!

That being said, if you have high nutrient levels Alk going either way will be less of a problem. I dose my LPS/Softie tank with some SPS once per week. It drops to about 7 and I dose it up to 10ish in one shot using baking soda.

Not knowing the way that you run your system I would advise raising it 1dkh per day (slowly, buy drip) until it's back to the normal level.

Whiskey

 

[Jahalu]

Thanks for the responses. I brought it up from 5.2 to 5.8. I keep staring at my acros convincing myself I see whitening. But I think at this point everything is still ok.

 

[telsonman]

I came back from a week of hunting a few months back and my alk was at 5.6. Doser quit working. I got it back to 8.5 after about a week, but within two weeks I started seeing the damage. For me it took some time, but my sps started STN. Killed several acros. They are just now starting to come back. My issue was that I have low nitrates, and that will cause more of a burn from an all swing.

 

[Jahalu]

Thanks for the info. Even though the numbers are improving, I’m expecting the coral to worsen. I’m steeling myself for some losses. I don’t have high nitrates, but my tank is very established and well fed. I normally keep my tank at 7.8. Alk is rising very quickly right now with minimal dosing (I imagine because there is no growth going on) so I’m trying to be very careful that I don’t overshoot it. I’m at 6.1 tonight.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

I had something similar happen. I mixed up dosing solutions and was dosing a 1/10th carbonate solution I had made for testing. When I got back from a work trip, I realized my alkalinity was in the high 5's.

Whatever you do, raise your alkalinity SLOWLY. I targeted no more than a 0.2 dKh increase per day. If everything is okay now, the most likely thing to make it worse is a big or drastic change, especially with regards to carbonate alkalinity.

 

[Jahalu]

Just an update. Back to 7.8 as of today. I went as slowly as I could and had no losses. Phew.