High Alk & Ca while pH Drops, Healthy Fish Dying Overnight

Engloid

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Also, forgot to mention, no chemical treatments in the house, the wife goes nowhere near the tank, and we have no other pets, besides my second tank.
Have you checked your top off water and your water for water changes, to see what alkalinity they are?
 
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kdragon64

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Sorry, forgot to address that part. Water top off and exchanges all done with RO/ DI water from BRS system with zero tds output, Kent salt used for all exchanges since set up, and I always test salinity and alkalinity before adding, never a problem there.
 

Engloid

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Sorry, forgot to address that part. Water top off and exchanges all done with RO/ DI water from BRS system with zero tds output, Kent salt used for all exchanges since set up, and I always test salinity and alkalinity before adding, never a problem there.
If you don't find any other possibilities, you might want to double check your RO water alk. I had a problem with two tds meters that would show zero when I was nowhere near it. My tank slowly went up to about 16 dkh
 
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kdragon64

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Just confirmed my in-line tds meter with my hand held meter, still zero tds output.
 

Engloid

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I would still recommend testing the alkalinity of your RO water. I had two inline TDS meter and both of them failed.
 
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kdragon64

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OK, got that, but I have a triple and a double in-line tds meter on my system to measure input, waste, output from membrane, output from di cartridge one and output from di cartridge two, then also just measured output water with additional separate handheld meter that is calibrated with commercially prepared standard tds solution. I'm confident that my ro/di water is not the cause.
 

PaulH

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I had a problem just like you. Tang started gasping for air and died. i doses 5ml nopox and 30ml of calcium , alkalinity during the night. For 100g volume reef tank.
the only thing i change is slowing down my reef octopus skimmer. It real starting pulling dark green stuff out then the tang started breathing hard and died, yellow tank 1 year old.
i up the speed on skimmer now lite brown stuff in skimmer. replaced yellow with purple tang.
hope this helps.
 

PaulH

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I had a problem just like you. Tang started gasping for air and died. i doses 5ml nopox and 30ml of calcium , alkalinity during the night. For 100g volume reef tank.
the only thing i change is slowing down my reef octopus skimmer. It real starting pulling dark green stuff out then the tang started breathing hard and died, yellow tank 1 year old.
i up the speed on skimmer now lite brown stuff in skimmer. replaced yellow with purple tang.
hope this helps.
 

vetteguy53081

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O2 is my suspect. Are you using RO water?
As fir your testing- stop and take a water sample to a trusted LFS and have test for you and compare results with your kit.
I also would recommend you purchase an ICP Kit such as ATI or Triton and send it in for a complete analysis if your tank before any more adjustments made
The high Kalk readings may very much have to do with the salt mix your using
 

Junkie

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I had a similar issue a few years back. Fairly suddenly all my fish in the tank seemed to be gasping for air and not really swimming around. Parameters were all in check, although I didn’t check ph. At the time I was dozing vinagar in order to try to stretch my waterchange intervals. I suspect what happend was a bacterial bloom, which in turn rapidly consumed the O2 in the system which could explain a ph drop, another possibility is that the water column was latent with bacteria enough to “clog up” the fishes gills. If I remember correctly NoPox is a carbon source and the objective of it is to increase bacterial counts that consume nitrates. The strange thing in your case is the predictable interval as to which the issue seems to reoccur. I wonder if there I simply some tipping point as to which the bacteria population simply crashes? In my case I still continue to carbon dose but now use vodka and do so very mildly and rely more on a strict waterchange regiment to control nutrients. It’s always brutal when things go wrong in this hobby, even more so when we can’t figure out why. In my case I lost 5 very high end Cirrhilabrus. I hope my theory helps, and keep at it.
 
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kdragon64

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Thank you all for the helpful comments. The tank has settled back to very near standard conditions again, and all remaining aquatic life are happy and healthy.

The bacterial bloom would make sense to me too for depriving O2 and lower pH. I wish I could verify that was the cause.

If so, how do I avoid that from happening again?

Also, I'm still hoping to hear how some of you clean out those overflow panel channels without totally blowing all the detritus, etc. into the tank, if you don't mind sharing your secrets, lol.
 

BeejReef

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I had a similar issue a few years back. Fairly suddenly all my fish in the tank seemed to be gasping for air and not really swimming around. Parameters were all in check, although I didn’t check ph. At the time I was dozing vinagar in order to try to stretch my waterchange intervals. I suspect what happend was a bacterial bloom, which in turn rapidly consumed the O2 in the system which could explain a ph drop, another possibility is that the water column was latent with bacteria enough to “clog up” the fishes gills. If I remember correctly NoPox is a carbon source and the objective of it is to increase bacterial counts that consume nitrates. The strange thing in your case is the predictable interval as to which the issue seems to reoccur. I wonder if there I simply some tipping point as to which the bacteria population simply crashes? In my case I still continue to carbon dose but now use vodka and do so very mildly and rely more on a strict waterchange regiment to control nutrients. It’s always brutal when things go wrong in this hobby, even more so when we can’t figure out why. In my case I lost 5 very high end Cirrhilabrus. I hope my theory helps, and keep at it.

Perhaps the issue appearing twice 8 mo's apart happens to be a coincidence and not a natural cycle?? I had my money on someone making a eureka breakthrough and blaming road salt or pollen counts. How long does a bottle of NoPox last you? Any chance you're hitting the bottom of the bottle every 6-8 months and dosing the older, more concentrated stuff? You've certainly got a heck of a mystery going on. Sorry about your fish.
 
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kdragon64

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The NOPOx concentration issue is something that I considered for sure. Although I can't totally rule that out, I did take some heed of the volatile nature of the solution. I actually use a bottle with an altered cap with a bulkhead in the middle for a 1/4 inch tube that reaches to just of the bottom of the container. This forms an airtight connection, so next to that bulkhead is a one way airline valve to allow air in to avoid forming a vacuum in the bottle, while not allowing air out. I refill that bottle as it gets low, and have never run out, so there is always some solution in the bottle when I refill. I never calculate volume expected to be used very accurately, but it's being used up at least to an estimation of the expected depletion.

Perhaps, over time, there is some concentration increase or the mixing of new with old may cause some build up of breakdown products? Maybe a problem with shelf life? Something I'll keep an eye on going forward. Maybe wait until the bottle is closer to being finished and dump the excess before refilling.
 

Mastiffsrule

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Glad to hear things are returning to normals. Sorry no help on the cleaning.

I would do th icp test soon like vetteguy said. Chances are if there is something in the water it may still be there and show in the test.
 
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kdragon64

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Not a bad idea. I'll look into that. I've never sent water out for testing before. First time for everything.
 

acabgd

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About two weeks ago, I noticed the alc and Ca were rising, to 11 and 480-500, respectively, so I cut the dose, pH was still around 8.0-8.1.
About one week ago, alc and Ca continued rising, to 12 and 500, respectively, so I cut off the doser all together, pH was still around 8.0-8.1.
Not much more I can add except this - the fact that Alk and Ca started rising so much sounds like due to corals shutting down their uptake. Something upset them majorly and they completely stopped their growth and processing of Alk and Ca.

Therefore I'd say whatever was happening to your tank started actually happening back then when Alk and Ca started rising so much.

Sorry for your losses, hang in there.
 
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