CA/Alk Dump Armageddon - Need Advice on How to Proceed.

[Fenwickwick]

So.....

I recently returned home from a 10 month deployment with the Army. I had an incredibly beautiful mixed reef tank (65g) when I left. I entrusted my father (who also has a super successful system) to watch over my tank while I was gone. I have a Apex/Trident installed on the tank and (at the time) had a Jaebo dosing pump set up to dose CA/Alk/Mag. The setup was a super healthy, well-oiled machine. Acro colonies, zoas, softies ect, all killing it. All until I got "the call."

One month into the deployment--"John, I've screwed up big time. I didn't understand the Jaebo interface and I accidentally pumped the entire reservoir of Alkalinity solution into your tank."

The tank was like a snow globe with the amount of precipitate that was produced. A ton of my corals died, but not all of them. Most of the Zoas colonies are still fine. Torches, Euphyllias, mushrooms, acans and 2 of my large acro colonies all made it out alive. (still a **** ton that died though).

All the fish slowly died off one by one. Clowns hung on for about 6 months and were the last to die. My cleaning crew was nuked entirely. Starfish and urchins are somehow unaffected. Now I've got a massive hair algae problem and cant get any cleaning crew to live for more than 9 seconds. Any fish that I have tried to re-add also die within the day. Essentially, anything that even gets close to the sand is dead.

My sand-bed is toxic and kills anything that gets near it. (except the SFs and urchins).

SO. Aside from the obvious, what (chemically speaking) has happened the toxify the sand? The corals on the rocks are all growing and doing fine again.

What am I doing about it? Well, I bought a brand new 120g ****** tank and I'm tearing the old one down. What should I do with my rockwork with all the corals? I don't want to reuse the rock, but dang. There's a ton of healthy coral on them. Worried the rocks are somehow toxic like the sand is. Idk, I'm super torn.

Any thoughts or advice from the community on how to proceed would be awesome!

 

[Hemmbone20]

So.....

I recently returned home from a 10 month deployment with the Army. I had an incredibly beautiful mixed reef tank (65g) when I left. I entrusted my father (who also has a super successful system) to watch over my tank while I was gone. I have a Apex/Trident installed on the tank and (at the time) had a Jaebo dosing pump set up to dose CA/Alk/Mag. The setup was a super healthy, well-oiled machine. Acro colonies, zoas, softies ect, all killing it. All until I got "the call."

One month into the deployment--"John, I've screwed up big time. I didn't understand the Jaebo interface and I accidentally pumped the entire reservoir of Alkalinity solution into your tank."

The tank was like a snow globe with the amount of precipitate that was produced. A ton of my corals died, but not all of them. Most of the Zoas colonies are still fine. Torches, Euphyllias, mushrooms, acans and 2 of my large acro colonies all made it out alive. (still a **** ton that died though).

All the fish slowly died off one by one. Clowns hung on for about 6 months and were the last to die. My cleaning crew was nuked entirely. Starfish and urchins are somehow unaffected. Now I've got a massive hair algae problem and cant get any cleaning crew to live for more than 9 seconds. Any fish that I have tried to re-add also die within the day. Essentially, anything that even gets close to the sand is dead.

My sand-bed is toxic and kills anything that gets near it. (except the SFs and urchins).

SO. Aside from the obvious, what (chemically speaking) has happened the toxify the sand? The corals on the rocks are all growing and doing fine again.

What am I doing about it? Well, I bought a brand new 120g ****** tank and I'm tearing the old one down. What should I do with my rockwork with all the corals? I don't want to reuse the rock, but dang. There's a ton of healthy coral on them. Worried the rocks are somehow toxic like the sand is. Idk, I'm super torn.

Any thoughts or advice from the community on how to proceed would be awesome!

What are your parameters now? Are you sure the rock work and sand are “contaminated”?

I’m no expert by any means, but I didn’t know that was possible.. you’d think with lots of water changes and eventual consumption of the Alk in the tank things would come back into balance.

 

[Fenwickwick]

It’s apex, trident, DOS controlled now. 9.5dkh, 440ppm CA, 1250 mag. All parameters are steady and never budge off these numbers. Just can’t keep any fish or inverts alive anymore. By that, I mean that they die nearly instantly. Again though, all remaining corals are super happy and healthy, to include a couple really nice acro colonies. ‍

 

[Fenwickwick]

To add to the above, nitrates and ammonia are in spec(if anything, pretty much undetectable). Honestly, there’s no bio load left in the tank to create any waste.

Also, the sand is not concreted from the precipitate.

I do dose AB+ and feed LIGHT fish food occasionally to keep the corals healthy. Bumped the water changes back to once every 3 weeks because I’m pretty just changing clean water. (No fish left)