HUGE Overdose of Ca/dKH

rtoris288 · Aug 21, 2019

I'm mid-cycling my Reefer 250 and had my first big oops last night... hoping for some advice.

I inadvertently turned my doser's on with the Apex app instead of auto which means they were left running for an extended period of time. I realized it before getting home but it dumped in 200ml each of Red Sea Calcium and Alkalinity (dkh). For reference I usually do about 50ml. When I got home my tank was a cloudy mess, my pH warning is going off (hit 8.84), and I couldn't see a thing inside my tank through the clouds. It was in this state for less than an hour.

I whipped up a couple batches of saltwater and did a 15 gallon water change before finally heading to bed and hoping for the best. I woke up this morning and the cloudiness had lessened but I noticed a huge amount of white residue all over my tank. I'm assuming it's some kind of algae but I'm not sure? I cleaned the glass but it's sitting all over my reef rocks, the powerheads, and even my macroalgae I have in the display.

The good news is most of the living things in the tank seem to be doing OK for now at least. My turbo snail is acting totally find, most of my frags I have added opened up, but my parameters are way up and this white stuff is everywhere. Couple of concrete questions:

Should I consider another water change. Parameters are within "acceptable" range by some opinions by way higher than normal. I'm sitting at
1. Alk - 11.8 (usually around 8)
2. Ca 491 (400ish)
3. Mg 1438 (I don't dose right now in general).
4. Ammonia 0
5. Nitrites very low/near 0
6. High nitrate (still cycling)
7. Low phosphates
What is this white stuff taking over my tank? Should I panic?
If it's a huge algae bloom, should I get more cleaners? Currently have my turbo, a emerald crab, and a couple of Ceriths.

MTBake · Aug 21, 2019

Sounds like the tank is still cycling, correct? Is there live stock in there?

1) Depends if you have livestock in there or not.

2) Precipitated calcium. You'll need to clean that off your equipment. It typically doesn't go away on its own.

3) Not an Algae bloom from what I can see. Pics under white light would help with this though.

LesPoissons · Aug 21, 2019

You should do a few more water changes to bring down the alk IMO.Scrub and syphon the precipitate ca off all your stuff.

Im kinda sensing you got excited and jumped the gun a bit on what you need and when to put things in. Its hard to wait, I know. Usually you wait to add any livestock until the cycle is complete. The reason we cycle is to build up beneficial bacteria that can help break down the wastes of the living things and stabilize the tank and water parameters. While cycling, you're exposing your snails and crabs to nitrites and ammonia and swings in ph and water quality etc... which is not so great for them. Is that a xenia Im seeing or a macro alage or a fake plant?

Regardless, since you have living things, get the water parameters back towards normal with water changes and let the tank be- and please dont add anything else for a few weeks until you are getting 0 nitrites and your levels are stable. (Be prepared, you may loose what you have in there.) This also may take a while since you are interrupting the cycle with the big water changes. Also, go ahead and disconnect your dosing pump. Nothing you have needs any additional ca/alk dosed, its an accident waiting to happen (again, lol). Until you have a variety of corals growing like crazy and sucking up all your ca- you dont need to dose anything unless you cant get a normal alk with your salt mix. My tank is 4 years old with 20+ corals and it does fine just with water changes of Instant Ocean.

If you need help with cycling and steps, just ask, were happy to help, but you need to slow down a bit and let the tank do its thing or you are going to create problems for yourself that are a lot more difficult to fix than prevent. = )

rtoris288 · Aug 24, 2019

Maya Ybry-Yagy said:
You should do a few more water changes to bring down the alk IMO.Scrub and syphon the precipitate ca off all your stuff.

Im kinda sensing you got excited and jumped the gun a bit on what you need and when to put things in. Its hard to wait, I know. Usually you wait to add any livestock until the cycle is complete. The reason we cycle is to build up beneficial bacteria that can help break down the wastes of the living things and stabilize the tank and water parameters. While cycling, you're exposing your snails and crabs to nitrites and ammonia and swings in ph and water quality etc... which is not so great for them. Is that a xenia Im seeing or a macro alage or a fake plant?

Regardless, since you have living things, get the water parameters back towards normal with water changes and let the tank be- and please dont add anything else for a few weeks until you are getting 0 nitrites and your levels are stable. (Be prepared, you may loose what you have in there.) This also may take a while since you are interrupting the cycle with the big water changes. Also, go ahead and disconnect your dosing pump. Nothing you have needs any additional ca/alk dosed, its an accident waiting to happen (again, lol). Until you have a variety of corals growing like crazy and sucking up all your ca- you dont need to dose anything unless you cant get a normal alk with your salt mix. My tank is 4 years old with 20+ corals and it does fine just with water changes of Instant Ocean.

If you need help with cycling and steps, just ask, were happy to help, but you need to slow down a bit and let the tank do its thing or you are going to create problems for yourself that are a lot more difficult to fix than prevent. = )

Thanks for the reply! I did some water changes and scrubbed some things and all is back to normal.

I appreciate the concern around jumping the gun. I've read a lot of horror stories! I should have specified, I still call it cycling just because I want to get a control on my high nitrates before introducing anything other than my cleanup crew. My ammonia and nitrites have been zeroed for a few weeks now (tanks been going for 3ish months). I use the Hanna ULR nitrite checker which reads 12ppbillion which is why I wrote it as "near zero" but the Red Sea manual test kit reads 0. I introduced the few zoa frags and clean up crew at the advice of my LFS. I put in some macro algae in my display as I harvest from the ref as a treat for my cleanup crew so that's what's pictured there all covered in residue (red ogo). I've been very hesitant to introduce any fish because I want to make sure I don't torture and kill it!

As for dosing, this is an interesting point. I've read I shouldn't be concerned with such an early tank but as I posted in https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/cant-seem-to-get-my-alk-up.639881/#post-6389139 my Alk drops pretty reliably after a few days from a WC. Advice welcome but might be better to keep it to that thread!

Excited to be apart of the R2R community and appreciate your quick responses in this matter!