It's Monday, why not try and nuke the tank?

[BanjoBandito]

Well, it's monday and we've had a "problem"....after recently installing a CO2 scrubber my PH was doing good. I recirculate it via the skimmer. Well, the skimmer got knocked over and started filling the CO2 media container full of water - now stop me if you've heard this before - but it immediately started dumping super high PH water into my sump. My APEX through an alarm for a PH of "9.8"....I kinda went HUH and thought it was a bad reading....now my tank is in the other room, I'm busy doing work stuff (my tank is in my office) and the APEX throws another one...."I BETTER LOOK AT THIS". Yeah, tank was completely white and all the coral were looking very weird....the tuxedo urchin was doing his best boogie nights impression. PANIC. So I shut down the sump, remove the CO2 media canister and setup the skimmer properly. I dump approx. 2 glugs of vinegar in and start changing water. SO FAR nothing has turned to mush. I think my DT is about 8.6 - 8.7 at this point. It's precip'in calcium like it's the blizzard of '93. What a mess. So yeah, when I thought "I should get a check valve for this CO2 scrubber line" I should have actually done it, along with "I should get a better stand for this skimmer". Wish me luck. Happy reefing!

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

ouch. hope everything recovers

 

[Kathy Floyd]

Oh no, I hope everything will be ok.

 

[BanjoBandito]

I got everything back to sub 8.5 ph and the sump is cleaned out and return is back on. It should degass more PH here as the day rolls on. Everything is still alive and showing no real ill effects....even the clam. lol.

 

[gbru316]

It's precip'in calcium like it's the blizzard of '93.

I lived in Lancaster at the time. As an 8 yo kid, '93 was glorious. Though I'm still salty that we lost power and I couldn't play my birthday gift -- Super Mario Kart.

Glad everything seems to be working out!

 

[BanjoBandito]

I lived in Lancaster at the time. As an 8 yo kid, '93 was glorious. Though I'm still salty that we lost power and I couldn't play my birthday gift -- Super Mario Kart.

Glad everything seems to be working out!

Blizzard of 93 was wild. I was 11. We were off school for a full week. I knew it was real sheet when dad didn't even go to work for like 3 days. "OH SNAP, DAD IS HOME!?!?!". I don't think I spent more than a few hours inside that whole week. I miss the heavy snows. Now it's just wet and rainy and the wind is brutal.

 

[gthack123]

I had something very similar happen yesterday…but worse. About three days prior I decided I really needed to program my apex to kill the skimmer if pH got too high…we’ll I procrastinated then forgot…yesterday woke up at 9 and checked on the tank…opaque white…pH 9.8…for some reason the apex hadn’t alarmed at all (until I walked upstairs and saw it). Fish moved to QT…all looking good except a royal gramma which I think looks better today. Corals all moved to a friends tank and so far nothing is dead…there’s actually some zoas still attached to the rock who look super happy but I feel like they’d grow in a toilet bowl. I did a 100% water change and wiped as much precipitate as I could off of everything but there’s still a film of precipitate over everything! Any suggestions on how to remove the precipitate? How is your tank doing now that your past this disaster?…I felt very stupid yesterday.

 

[BanjoBandito]

I had something very similar happen yesterday…but worse. About three days prior I decided I really needed to program my apex to kill the skimmer if pH got too high…we’ll I procrastinated then forgot…yesterday woke up at 9 and checked on the tank…opaque white…pH 9.8…for some reason the apex hadn’t alarmed at all (until I walked upstairs and saw it). Fish moved to QT…all looking good except a royal gramma which I think looks better today. Corals all moved to a friends tank and so far nothing is dead…there’s actually some zoas still attached to the rock who look super happy but I feel like they’d grow in a toilet bowl. I did a 100% water change and wiped as much precipitate as I could off of everything but there’s still a film of precipitate over everything! Any suggestions on how to remove the precipitate? How is your tank doing now that your past this disaster?…I felt very stupid yesterday.

Yeah, sometimes this hobby humbles you. To say the least....lol. What type of precip is it? Just "dust"? What's your ALK range? Beyond blowing it off and sucking it out with water changes I'm not sure I'd risk anything else.

 

[gthack123]

It was the CO2 scrubber media which I think is Basically kalkwasser pellets? and maybe some other stuff…amazingly after a 100% water change the alk was 8.5 and the calcium was actually a bit low at 380. All of my coralline looks like it’s dying and all of the snails died…sand sifting star probably will die as well but not the worst outcome considering what happened. I think the next big decision is when is it safe to move stuff back in to the DT.

Yeah, sometimes this hobby humbles you. To say the least....lol. What type of precip is it? Just "dust"? What's your ALK range? Beyond blowing it off and sucking it out with water changes I'm not sure I'd risk anything else.

 

[BanjoBandito]

It was the CO2 scrubber media which I think is Basically kalkwasser pellets? and maybe some other stuff…amazingly after a 100% water change the alk was 8.5 and the calcium was actually a bit low at 380. All of my coralline looks like it’s dying and all of the snails died…sand sifting star probably will die as well but not the worst outcome considering what happened. I think the next big decision is when is it safe to move stuff back in to the DT.

Yeah I got lucky, shot my PH up to 9.6 and my ALK somewhere in the 15's.....I did rapid water changes and got everything down to REASONABLE levels within a few hours (PH 8.6, ALK around 12) and haven't lost anything other than a few small CUC inverts.