Alk burn got me

[StrategicReef]

I had an old ELOS test kit that's almost expired. I had been keeping the alk at 8 things seemed happy.. when I got the new ELOS test kit to replace it, it says alk is at 7, so I thought the old kit was wrong, slowly over the course of few weeks, I brought the alk so the new test kit says it is at 8.5, switched back to the old test kit and it says alk is 10. Turns out the old test kit is alot more correct!

The tips and growing coralites are white and PE is gone on the affected Acros, monti bleached. Algae is starting to stuck on some of the tips. The fastest growing green slimer bleached and only half PE and looking really bad. Have a leng sy cap that was pale also bleached. Some are OK though like nothing happened, it's all the acros that have little PE that suffered the burn.

really upset.. yes I have been vodka dosing only a little, and have quite low nutrients. Will the acros bounce back and recover once my Alk return lower levels? I turned off my dosing pumps for now.

 

[Amphiprion]

Once you get the alkalinity lowered a bit, they will recover like with any other injury, IME.

I can't say how similar "alk burn" is to physical injury, but it heals the same.

 

[LifeAquatic]

I havent had good luck with SPS recovering from alk burn. I have a few peices that have the same white tips. The braches just grow longer but the tips are still white. Maybe its just me tho.

 

[mcoomer]

I had a similar event occur in my tank when I started dosing two part. I let alk get out of control and had the tips on a couple corals burn and grow algae. Got the alk under control and did nothing else. All corals fully recovered.

 

[eros]

10 doesnt seem high enough for alk burn. my alk fluctuates from 8-10 weekly, no problems whatsoever. I've had it occasionally go to 12 without issue.

 

[luvdiving]

I agree..10 is low to see alk burn
Imo. .

 

[RickMartin]

I agree 10 is too low for alk burn

 

[68sting]

I accidentally plugged my dosing pump into the outlet instead of the timer a while back. It pumped almost a 1/2 gallon of two part alk over night. My alk went from 9 to 13 overnight with no problems for the corals.

 

[ChuckG]

How can they sell these kits and get away with it? I am not focusing just on the brand mentioned in this thread but all of the hobby grade kits.

It might be worth it to get the Hach titrator kits if you can't get consistency out of the hobby stuff. Maybe using a calibration type reference of known value might help when it comes to evaluating the hobby grade test kit accuracy.