Left calcium doser on all night

bct15 · Jun 24, 2013

I tested my parameters yesterday like I do every Wednesday and sunday. Noticed my calcium was a little lower than I like, it was 390 an I prefer 410...so around 1:30 AM I decided to turn manually turn on my calcium doser for 13 minutes and repeat over the next few days to get it my calcium back to 410. I set my phone timer to remind, well my phone died in the 13 minutes and I forgot to turn the doser off till 8:30 this morning. So it was in for about 7 hours straight!! I checked my calcium an it is at 460, so it isn't at a crazy level, and my alk is still at 8.1. Guess I dodged a bullet, now I'll just leave it off for about three days to get it back down. I use red sea coral pro, and fresh mixed cal is 450 so water changes won't make a difference. Hopefully my coral won't react to bad from the small spike in cal. I'm just glad I remembered it was on before I used the whole jug.

This happens after I get my mag back below 1500, had a bad Mag test that was giving me mag readings of 1180 to 1290. Ordered a new one and my mag was 1700!! Been letting it come down for two months, and now I spike my cal.

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Reefing Madness · Jun 24, 2013

WOW. Sounds like a Murphys Law incident.

revhtree · Jun 24, 2013

Whew glad you dodged a bullet!

bct15 · Jun 24, 2013

Reefing Madness said:
WOW. Sounds like a Murphys Law incident.

Murphy's law dictates my life

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bct15 · Jun 24, 2013

Does that sound like a sever spike that will cause a bunch of damage...my tank is mixed reef with about 60-70% acros. I can go buy some lower cal salt to bring it down with some water changes. Isis change 30 gallons yesterday as my maintenance though and don't want to do much more...

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mcarroll · Jun 29, 2013

It's pretty tough to go wrong dosing Ca in my experience.

I did exactly the same thing you did, but my system had dosed 3 gallons of solution...calculated calcium level? 700 ppm.

Worst side effect? SPS growth spurt with increased coloration.

Do not expect this kind of result if you leave the alkalinity doser on.

-Matt

prsnlty · Jul 2, 2013

Glad you're tank is safe

Good to hear about high CA but what if you have high CA and high Mag? I feel like a dummy and read my new test kit instructions wrong. Now my CA is at 600 & mag at 1600 :banghead: alk and ph is good. Should I do a water change?

125g mixed reef Peninsula

mcarroll · Jul 4, 2013

Unlikely to be a problem either IMO - if the corals don't look stressed from it they probably aren't.

If you're worried do some water changes to nudge things back in the right direction - nothing too crazy though. 10% per day is as much as I'd do. Just to be safe, don't try to make any further adjustments to these or other parameters until the numbers get back to within range of your test kit.

Alk is the real pain in the butt if you go wrong because of it's direct effect on pH. It's a cascade of bad things happening when you get there...

-Matt

bct15 · Jul 4, 2013

prsnlty said:
Glad you're tank is safe

Good to hear about high CA but what if you have high CA and high Mag? I feel like a dummy and read my new test kit instructions wrong. Now my CA is at 600 & mag at 1600 :banghead: alk and ph is good. Should I do a water change?

125g mixed reef Peninsula

Check your alk too, with calcium getting that high it could have precipitated some alk out...if not it should be fine just don't add any cal or mag until they are back where you want them. It took two days for my cal to drop back to 400 and my sps growth did have a spurt...now in thinking about maintaining around 440 and see if I keep that kind of growth.

I had a faulty mag test kit and when I got a new test kit I discovered my mag was over 1700. It did cause some problems, mostly with acros with purple in them and my zoas didn't like it...a couple zoas melted. They were opening like normal but each day getting smaller and smaller and color got kind of bright. My mag is now 1460, took several months to get down, and the effected acros look better and the zoas look great again. In still trying to get it down to 1300, but have to keep waiting. The bump in calcium didn't have any noticeable effects.

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mcarroll · Jul 5, 2013

While I wouldn't discourage good old experimentation, 420 ppm Ca, 1350 ppm Mg and 4.0 meq/L (~11 dKH, 200 ppm) alkalinity are the tried and true "highs" IME and reading, if you're just looking for a good set of targets to shoot for. Highest numbers (safety margin, growth) while still maintaining a low risk factor for precipitation.

-Matt

prsnlty · Jul 6, 2013

Thank you

my alk has always been a little low and the same for the PH. When this happened they actually came up to where they should be. This is the first time in the history of this tank to have a decent PH reading. I lost a monti-digi and a few snails. Not sure if it was a result of the dosing or the treatment to rid the tank of dinos completed just before.

125g mixed reef Peninsula

feh · Jul 6, 2013

At least it wasn't the Alk pump you left on all night. Done that before... wasn't pretty.

Dowtish · Jul 6, 2013

I actually turned my alk pump on by accident 2 weeks ago with my phone. It dosed 1.1ml per minute for about 8 hours straight. It raised my ALK from 8 to 14.1! and my ph went up to 8.69. I did some reading here on R2R and the best advice was to NOT do anything drastic. I did one 5 gallon WC on 100 gal system to bring it down to closer to 12dkh. And then just let it fall on its own. Not a single coral reacted negatively! I was amazed.

Some folks were saying you need to do a massive WC and get your levels back down to normal. Which I think is the worst thing you can do. It just causes another swing and a much faster one at that. The fact that a dosing pump doesnt make the level spike in a matter of a few seconds is probably the saving grace in these type situations, its just how you let it drop back down.

feh · Jul 6, 2013

I had no choice in my case but to do a 10 gal WC. My tang was on the sandbed, corals stressed, etc. I left mine on for around the same time or longer. Dummy hit on instead of auto on the tank controller. It took weeks to get everything cleaned up. Pic below of what things looked like after I shut the pumps down. Looked much worse while the pumps were blowing the snow storm. Also I was dosing soda ash at 1.1mL per minute. I think I topped out at around 9 on the pH. I had it caked on pumps etc. I couldn't leave the tank like that. I didn't take the time to bother with testing to see how bad it was. I have around 85 gallons total volume. I went through a 1/2 gallon of vinegar cleaning things up.

http://i1011.photobucket.com/albums/af235/feh1973/snowstorm.jpg

I reprogrammed the controller to use an alarm to kill the dosing pump once the pH rises above 8.5 now.

Dowtish said:
I actually turned my alk pump on by accident 2 weeks ago with my phone. It dosed 1.1ml per minute for about 8 hours straight. It raised my ALK from 8 to 14.1! and my ph went up to 8.69. I did some reading here on R2R and the best advice was to NOT do anything drastic. I did one 5 gallon WC on 100 gal system to bring it down to closer to 12dkh. And then just let it fall on its own. Not a single coral reacted negatively! I was amazed.

Some folks were saying you need to do a massive WC and get your levels back down to normal. Which I think is the worst thing you can do. It just causes another swing and a much faster one at that. The fact that a dosing pump doesnt make the level spike in a matter of a few seconds is probably the saving grace in these type situations, its just how you let it drop back down.