Overdosed Alk…How Fast Should I bring It Down??

[FortLivingRoom]

I accidentally left my doser on and doses 50-100mL of all for reef into my 35g system. It happened over 4hrs. My alk was 13.3 about 8hrs after the dose when I realized the od. My tank usually runs 10.5-11. I had 10g on-hand mixed at 11dkh so I changed it that night hoping to remove some all for reef that hadn’t converted yet to all increase. In the morning it was 13.6 so I had my AWC change out 4g while I was at work yesterday (was programmed to change out 10g but I had a DOS malfunction) of fresh tropic marin mixed at 7.7dkh. Last night about 36hrs after the over dose my alk was 17.0 Ca 520 and Mg 1500. My question is some people have told me not to drop it too slow while others are telling me to do a big change still…what do I do?

 

[14 foot reef]

I think I would take the step BRS took on the XXL 750 they overdosed. They did a 100% water change back to the original parameters that the tank was running before the OD.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'd personally just watch it for a couple of days as I expect it will drop on its own.

What is the alk now?

 

[FortLivingRoom]

I'd personally just watch it for a couple of days as I expect it will drop on its own.

What is the alk now?

Thank you for the response sir! Alk was 17.0 this morning approximately 44hrs after dosing began and about 40hrs since dose completed.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thank you for the response! Alk was 17.0 this morning approximately 44hrs after dosing began and about 40hrs since dose completed.

Nothing is being dosed now, right?

I'm not understanding how it went up between 8 h after overdose (13.3 dKH) and 2 days after (17 dKH).

How much alk (in dKH, not mL) do you usually dose in a day?

 

[FortLivingRoom]

Nothing is being dosed now, right?

I'm not understanding how it went up between 8 h after overdose (13.3 dKH) and 2 days after (17 dKH).

How much alk (in dKH, not mL) do you usually dose in a day?

Correct, nothing has been dosed since the overdose. All for reef label says there is 2,800dkh per 500mL and I usually dose 28dkh per day (5mL) into a 35g system. On Sunday morning about 8am I started the doser and it ran until the bottle was empty. I would say it dosed at most 560dkh (100mL) over the course of 4hrs. About 12hrs later at 8pm I detected the error when my alk measured 13.3 (Hanna). So I changed 10g with a batch I had mixed (tropic marin pro reef salt which has the alk increased to 11 using soda ash) in hopes of pulling out some all for reef that hadn’t been converted yet. Right after the change my alk was 12.6. Then on Monday morning it was at 13.6. By Monday morning I had mixed a fresh batch of saltwater but didn’t add soda ash so the alk of that saltwater was 7.7. While I was at work yesterday my AWC changed out 4 gallons. I wasn’t able to test alk last night. Alk this morning at 4am was 17.0 and that’s the most recent test I have.

 

[FortLivingRoom]

So

Nothing is being dosed now, right?

I'm not understanding how it went up between 8 h after overdose (13.3 dKH) and 2 days after (17 dKH).

How much alk (in dKH, not mL) do you usually dose in a day?

Sorry, I should specify the product I use to raise my fresh saltwater alkalinity is Red Sea foundation Kh/alkalinity.

 

[FortLivingRoom]

I’m at 15.8 now but my AWC had changed out 4 gallons while I was at work.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Correct, nothing has been dosed since the overdose. All for reef label says there is 2,800dkh per 500mL and I usually dose 28dkh per day (5mL) into a 35g system. On Sunday morning about 8am I started the doser and it ran until the bottle was empty. I would say it dosed at most 560dkh (100mL) over the course of 4hrs. About 12hrs later at 8pm I detected the error when my alk measured 13.3 (Hanna). So I changed 10g with a batch I had mixed (tropic marin pro reef salt which has the alk increased to 11 using soda ash) in hopes of pulling out some all for reef that hadn’t been converted yet. Right after the change my alk was 12.6. Then on Monday morning it was at 13.6. By Monday morning I had mixed a fresh batch of saltwater but didn’t add soda ash so the alk of that saltwater was 7.7. While I was at work yesterday my AWC changed out 4 gallons. I wasn’t able to test alk last night. Alk this morning at 4am was 17.0 and that’s the most recent test I have.

The slow breakdown of the All For Reef may be why the alk is not going town and actually rising during some periods. A problem using this sort of product, IMO.

I wish Tropic Marin would also not use such a ridiculous description. It makes your statement meaningless and incorrect. There's no such thing as dKH per mL. It like saying you speed of your car is 30 MPH per minute.

Hopefully without any dosing it will start going down more steadily.

 

[Stoney]

I wish Tropic Marin would also not use such a ridiculous description. It makes your statement meaningless and incorrect. There's no such thing as dKH per mL. It like saying you speed of your car is 30 MPH per minute.

Been trying to figure out what that meant for years

 

[FortLivingRoom]

The slow breakdown of the All For Reef may be why the alk is not going town and actually rising during some periods. A problem using this sort of product, IMO.

I wish Tropic Marin would also not use such a ridiculous description. It makes your statement meaningless and incorrect. There's no such thing as dKH per mL. It like saying you speed of your car is 30 MPH per minute.

Hopefully without any dosing it will start going down more steadily.

How would I go about finding out how much alkalinity I’m dosing with AFR? Their website doesn’t provide much information. Is it some “proprietary secret”?

 

[Kayanarka]

How did things turn out?

 

[FortLivingRoom]

How did things turn out?

All is good so far! So within 5 days it had dropped down to 11.9 and I started redosing all for reef by hand to stabilize it. Currently at 11.0. The canary in the tank was my Goni, it closed up before I knew the overdose happened, but is looking good again. No corals have died…so far…but a lot of people say it can take weeks for the effects of the spike to show so we’ll see. I just added a bunch of new coral Saturday and everything looks good. Oddly, my salinity increased from 35 to 36.4 I haven’t figured out how. ATO is working fine and i haven’t done any water changes in a week. If anything it should have gone down due to the small amounts of water I remove for testing.