Oh nooo!!! I accidently dosed Alk instead of Calc!!!

Sierra_Bravo · Sep 9, 2018

Did my water tests yesterday and calc was low. Calculator said to supplement 397 ml of Randy's two part to correct. I dosed half of that yesterday. I did another calc test today and it was the same. How the heck. . . ?

Looked at my pH and it's 8.4 and it dawns on me. Looked at the jug and sure enough - I grabbed it out of the alk jug. I went from 8.7 yesterday at 4pm to ??? dKH , then continued to add alk with my doser on its normal programmed routine. It's at 10.8 dKH right now.

I don't see any immediate damage and everything appears normal at this moment.

I shut off the doser and am going to let it return to 8.5 on its own, unless someone thinks there's a better way to do it.

cracker · Sep 9, 2018

hey Iv'e done the same. Your plan to let it come down is right.

Sierra_Bravo · Sep 9, 2018

Trying to find the bright side, since I'm almost at 11dKH I can always put that BRS video about higher growth at higher alkalinity to the test. . . although I dont think they meant all at one shot!

Sierra_Bravo · Sep 9, 2018

First two causulties have shown up: Farmer Ty Glacier and YG Yellow. The Glacier completely bleached. The YG is starting to at the base.

Sierra_Bravo · Sep 9, 2018

Retested at 8:00pm. Down to 10.3 dKH.

vetteguy53081 · Sep 10, 2018

Dont add the next couple of days. Will continue to fall

Sierra_Bravo · Sep 10, 2018

It went down quite a bit last night and is now at 8.8 dKH. I turned back on my doser to cusion the decent; I don't want it to yoyo the other way. I also reduced my lighting for today.

The Farmer Ty Glacier is still the only casualty I see. Thankfully the YG's bleaching does not appear to have progressed. The rest of the corals all went to work growing as there is allelopathy around the encrusting edges of almost all of the remaining corals.

Sierra_Bravo · Sep 12, 2018

Four days in since the mistake and a third coral is now showing damage. My pink hyacinth frag bleached on one side. The top still looks okay. I will be watching my red planet and red rage since they are closely related.

Sierra_Bravo · Sep 13, 2018

10 hours later and it's progressed significantly.

I removed and covered the affected area with super glue and epoxy to see if I can stop it. Too ugly to photo - it was a serious hack job since I have to get to work and don't have the time to spend to do it correctly. I'll fix it this weekend.

Sierra_Bravo · Sep 14, 2018

New day, new coral. Boom's Acro J. I went ahead and fragged the top half and re-mounted. Painted the damaged areas with superglue on the bottom half.

MSI · Sep 15, 2018

Auch, that spike hit you hard

I'm sorry for that.

Sierra_Bravo · Sep 15, 2018

When does this end: ASD Rainbow. Perfectly fine this morning; found it this way a half hour ago. Pulled the rock, painted the RTN'd base with super glue and will hope for the best.

Sierra_Bravo · Sep 18, 2018

ORA Pearlberry frag is the next on the list to be affected. . . sigh.

Lance Schneider · Sep 18, 2018

Hope they recover. Looks like it’ll be a while before you know for sure

bboygraphix · Sep 23, 2018

i just went through this (over-dosed Alk). you're doing the right thing to frag and glue them to stop the RTN. i did the same and saved most of my pieces.

Sierra_Bravo · Sep 23, 2018

I'm relying on the "hope and pray" mode now. I've left on business for the next two weeks and my family will not be able to react if there are more issues.

MTBake · Sep 23, 2018

Hope it starts to turn around for you. Really sucks.

I had a cheapo doser get stuck on when I had my 75 gal. Alk was over 18dkh when I got home from a weekend trip. Lost every coral I had, but not the darned aiptasia infestation I had going. Sand turned into cement more or less. I transferred the fish into a 29 and took the tank down. Kinda took a little break from the hobby without actually getting all the way out. Now I'm have more passion about the hobby than ever.