Bound to happen.. PH Crash!

[eboonaman]

Well it was bound to happen; I've been living on borrowed time for the past 4 months. Had to move tank months ago to have the wood floors redone, since I was going to up grade to a 120 figured it was no sense moving the old tank back just to move it again when I set up. So I didn't reconnect the plumbing, refugium, and skimmer and just was doing 20-30% weekly WC.
Well things happen and I finally just got around finishing the 120 stand, and got lazy on the WC ..... PH CRASH!!:eek2: 12 o'clock everything looked fine by 4:30am found all fish dead with the exception of a pair of watchman gobies. Was running a HOB filter with carbon and I shut it off to feed the fish then forgot to put it back on.. Don’t know if that was the cause or just one of the many catalyst to the problem.
Anyway did a 50% emergency water change and added buffer. PH came back up to 8.2 from 6.4. Now when the water clears let see how many corals surrvied?
Expensive Lesson...
Anyone have a kleenex?

 

[DgenR8]

Sorry to hear about that Chuck. Goes to show how easily you can make a critical mistake.
Good luck, I hope you find some corals were strong enough to survive.

 

[LCGoldman]

Chuck,

I feel your pain... the suddenness of it all makes it hurt that much more.

 

[JCnflies]

Sorry.... I worry the same thing will happen toi me. That's why I hope to find some device where you can turn off the pump fopr 30 minutes and it turns itself back on automatically.

Maybe the corals were not in t he acid water too long and might be OK................. good luck.

 

[dnsheavy]

Chuck:

I have a spare ReefKeeper controller you can borrow if you like. It has a feed cycle and will turn your pumps back on after feeding is complete.


--Dave--

 

[Zoa]

Chuck--So sorry to read about your crash. I can feel the pain and devastation in your note. Best of luck with your surviving corals and gobies. Keep us updated......

 

[Reef Junkie]

Ouch!
Sorry to hear about your loss Chuck. Losing animals is never an easy thing.

 

[eboonaman]

That's everyone for the support,Dave thanks for the offer but at the moment I don't have to feed anthing :lol:
So far it's just the fish and shrimp that died, the corals look banged up but at least they're opening and my RBTA and clams are opening and responding to stimuli.
any ideas how to stablize the ph without a reactor? the ph drops from 8.2 to 7.7 by the morning. I think this is normal but I rather it not drop below 8.0.
chuck
(The Master of Disaster)

 

[DgenR8]

If you still had the 'fuge running, you could light it opposite the tank.
7.7 is too low, Chuck. Something is not right if it's getting all the way down there.
Get your skimmer back online, if nothing else, and get a PH monitor, so you can see this kind of thing coming at you.

 

[Reef Junkie]

You can try dripping a Kalkwasser mixture overnight. That would help keep it from dropping through the floor.
Or dose a two part solution.
You can even use suped buffer DKH to bring it up and them do one of the two above.

I hear baking soda works too, but I have no experience with using it. Maybe Chris B can help?

 

[cb747]

Like Bill said dose kalk. Thats what i do on ym tank as well as having the refugium lit 24/7. Ive done the baking soda trick and it does work. I dont however remember how much i added. Do a search and im sure youll get lots of results. Simplest thing to do would be to dose your top off water with Kalk fully saturated. Just do it slowly like via a drip line.

 

[Zoa]

Chuck,

How are things?

Melanie

 

[eboonaman]

thanks for asking. Everything is going fine, My softie's and lps survived and are doing good. within the next week I hopefully will be transfering the whole deal to my 120..
see you at the meeting
chuck

 

[Zoa]

good news Chuck!


Melanie

 

[DgenR8]

Glad to hear that it wasn't a total disaster, Chuck. Now call Tony about that PH monitor you need!