EMERGENCY!

[tatties]

i have a 65g DT, with a 30g sump.

i just installed the apex fusion system. setup the DOS this afternoon and setup the task to dump 10ml of each, each day. set to ON. (thinking that would set the schedule in motion).

WAS I WRONG!

about an hour later my wife walked by and told me the tank looked cloudy and couldnt see anything! i knew right away that the DOS had been on the ENTIRE time. apex told me it dumped 400ml of each in it. so awesome.

i flew to my LFS and got 20g of SW, and did an immed water change.


EDIT: i dumped 2 part (bionic) into it.

what else can i do? just sit back and pray?

thanks!

 

[Crabs McJones]

Sorry to hear, I almost made the same mistake setting mine up. Water change to get the alk rich water out is about all you can do and hope the corals dont freak out

 

[Amps Reef Life]

Maybe a bigger water change. Other than that I can't think of anything else you can do. If the tank was really cloudy you may be in trouble. By the sound of it you are dosing ALK and the only way to bring it down if its really high (test it) is to do a water change or wait.

Sorry to hear about your situation. Best of luck to you.

 

[jsker]

I agree with the above, but find a salt with allow alk and Ca to the water change. I/O blue would be the inexpensive way to go. Other wise ride it out.

 

[tatties]

well its not AS cloudy as it was. good thing is the calcium was on the low end, and the ph was hovering around 8. soooooo

 

[tatties]

I agree with the above, but find a salt with allow alk and Ca to the water change. I/O blue would be the inexpensive way to go. Other wise ride it out.

i grabbed SW form the LFS, usually i make my own. so who knows the levels. had to act quick and thank god i could do that 20g.

thanks for all your quick replies.

 

[tatties]

Sorry to hear, I almost made the same mistake setting mine up. Water change to get the alk rich water out is about all you can do and hope the corals dont freak out

im gone out of town till monday morning, would you do another big water change...or just a regular 10 gallon?

 

[biophilia]

The bigger the better for the water change. Ideally you'd do a 90%+ water change or higher, so think more along those lines than multiple 10% changes.

Another option to get it down really fast is to pick up some muriatic acid from a pool supply shop or hardware store, make up another 20g of water and add enough of the acid to it to get the water in your mixing container to something really low like 4-5DKH, let it aerate until the pH gets back up close to 8 and do a water change with that. That will require careful handling of the muriatic acid though and adding it outside because the fumes are incredibly strong and the stuff is really corrosive.

 

[tatties]

The bigger the better for the water change. Ideally you'd do a 90%+ water change or higher, so think more along those lines than multiple 10% changes.

Another option to get it down really fast is to pick up some muriatic acid from a pool supply shop or hardware store, make up another 20g of water and add enough of the acid to it to get the water in your mixing container to something really low like 4-5DKH, let it aerate until the pH gets back up close to 8 and do a water change with that. That will require careful handling of the muriatic acid though and adding it outside because the fumes are incredibly strong and the stuff is really corrosive.

i actually have that acid here already. just don't feel comfortable doing all that. i dont have the time too, i can only make 6 gallons of water an hour.

just gonna sit and wait. 20g was all i could get from LFS...only had 4 buckets.

 

[tatties]

my ph probe is still saying 8.2. does it take time for it to raise?

im gonna check my calcium with the red sea in a 15 min.

 

[tatties]

just checked.

calcium at 380
alk at 9.6 dkh

just started my water, i can do another 10 gallons tonight.

 

[biophilia]

Those numbers seem completely fine. Sounds like it didn't dump all that much in afterall! Should be good to go with another 10% water change for good measure.

 

[tatties]

Those numbers seem completely fine. Sounds like it didn't dump all that much in afterall! Should be good to go with another 10% water change for good measure.

why the heck does my apex ph probe say 8.2 still?

my red sea came up with that 9.6

 

[biophilia]

Was the dosing container actually drained? If your ALK is 9.6DKH and your pH is 8.2 it sounds like not all that much of the 2 part was actually added. What alk does your tank normally run at?

 

[tatties]

Was the dosing container actually drained? If your ALK is 9.6DKH and your pH is 8.2 it sounds like not all that much of the 2 part was actually added. What alk does your tank normally run at?

well the apex said i dropped 400ml. who knows if that’s right? the ddr had about a quarter missing in each one, just filled them this afternoon and calibrated the pump. according to my apex the ph hasn’t changed. the water was so cloudy i could see thru it, it’s very clear now. everyone is sleeping and lights are off.

isn’t there something in the apex i can set that would make it never drop more than i ask? it shouldn’t let me do that!?

 

[biophilia]

well the apex said i dropped 400ml. who knows if that’s right? the ddr had about a quarter missing in each one, just filled them this afternoon and calibrated the pump. according to my apex the ph hasn’t changed. the water was so cloudy i could see thru it, it’s very clear now. everyone is sleeping and lights are off.

isn’t there something in the apex i can set that would make it never drop more than i ask? it shouldn’t let me do that!?

It sounds like possibly the overdosed B-Ionic simply precipitated out... probably as calcium carbonate which brought your pH and alk down right back down to where it was to begin with. Whatever cloudiness is left will probably settle out in the next day or so and hopefully/likely no real damage was done.

Not sure about the Apex issue, but I agree that there should be some sort of built in failsafe that keeps it from dumping 40x your programmed volume in one go without at least prompting for a confirmation. I think I remember reading of others having a similar confusion about the vagueness of the wording "ON". Seems like something like "DISABLED, RUN PROGRAM, and MANUAL CONTINUOUS MODE" would be more intuitive...

 

[MSB123]

It sounds like possibly the overdosed B-Ionic simply precipitated out... probably as calcium carbonate which brought your pH and alk down right back down to where it was to begin with. Whatever cloudiness is left will probably settle out in the next day or so and hopefully/likely no real damage was done.

Not sure about the Apex issue, but I agree that there should be some sort of built in failsafe that keeps it from dumping 40x your programmed volume in one go without at least prompting for a confirmation. I think I remember reading of others having a similar confusion about the vagueness of the wording "ON". Seems like something like "DISABLED, RUN PROGRAM, and MANUAL CONTINUOUS MODE" would be more intuitive...

A failsafe is useless if you manually turn it on. Turning it to “ON” bypasses all program and or failsafes.

 

[steallife904]

What do you normally keep your ALK and Calc at? if your normal range is around that 9.6 your fine. If not you need to do as many water changes as possible to bring down but even that can be a problem. The rise and fall (specially in a short period of time) is stressful on coral and that alone could do them in. I had similar thing happen to me years ago and I caught it and did change out 50%+ of the water but the ALK went from around 8 to 11 then back down in the 8-9 range within 2 days. I lost a lot of SPS, most of my LPS didn't care but out of the LPS my scoly died? it sucked. THis isn't always the case though, u may not have had as big of a shift and can be ok