Dosing timer failed to shut off dumped 1 gal of 2 part soda ash in sump

J

jeff1733

Premium Member
Have 150gal display with 50gal sump. Apparently most of it crystallized in the bottom of my sump where it was being dosed at 1.1ml per min. I shut down all the pumps and vacuumed it out. Alkalinity was very high at about 13.
1. Why didn't it all dissolve? It's dripping in an area that doesn't get a whole lot of flow. I know from high school chemistry solutions can become saturated and then fail to dissolve further but I can't really imagine that happened here. Did I just get lucky?
2. It's been running for about a year without any issues. Is there a fool proof way to keep this from happening again? I'm throwing the timer away but what if another does the same thing. I was thinking about only filling the 1 gal jug with about 25% full in case timer did it again but may that would be too much also? I know the real solution is probably an $800 controller system.

How is it didn't have a disaster?
 
Last edited:
Im sorry to hear about your situation.. i got an used apex classic for like 200$ .. checkout the local forums and get a used controller.. its worth it..


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Did your calcium doser start dosing at the same time? That will cause it to crystalize.
 
I'd bet you got very lucky. Continue to monitor the levels. Definitely a good move vacuuming it all out.
 
I had alk overdose before and did not lose anything.
IhTKyjY.jpg


some threads I read when I had the overdose
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1793226
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1825213

I followed Randy's post and did water change till ph was just under 9.
I think Randy does not post here anymore and moved to the other reef site.
 
Depends on what you are keeping, and the underlying 'stress' levels of the livestock. I've had alk spikes/drops have no effect on SPS; and I have had them begin a tank-wide STN event. Latter is more likely if the corals are already stressed by WQ or temperatures.

If we are just talking LPS or softies, probably you will be OK.

I've long advocated buying as high quality equipment as possible, but this is particularly true with dosing devices. I would not, for example, touch the Jebao peristaltic doser with the proverbial '10 foot pole' and I wince every time somebody says 'I've been running one without problems for _______'. Just seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
 
Ive had this happen to me twice, and never lost anything either time, but i DID to huge water changes both times.

What happens is this actually somewhat regulates itself. By dosing a huge amount of Alk, it raised the PH very quickly, and that caused a huge amount of calcium to precipitate, forming a cloud of calcium carbonate in your water. Once the ph lowered it stopped precipitating and everything basically evened back out to relative normal levels. You may get some burned tips on some SPS if you have them, but otherwise you likely will be ok. Make sure you test your levels, as its likely that you Ca is probably very low now :).

When I did it, i had both parts dump equal amounts (about a gallon of each of Randy's DIY 2 part), so I didnt have low Ca after
 
This happened to me when I first set up a dosing system. My problem was that the pump shut off, but the solution level was higher than the sump level, so the entire gallon of ALK siphoned out and into my 180 reef (at the time). I came home to a completely clouded tank. I did a massive amount of water change over the next day and in the end I lost nothing. The ALK level only went up by just over a point as well.

What you saw is that the ALK solution simply precipitated out. Because it was dosed relatively quickly, it didn't all go into solution. Consider this a good thing. You don't need to spend $800 on a controller either. I started off with a Reefkeeper Lite ($99) and it worked well for me for a few years.
 
ca1ore said:
Depends on what you are keeping, and the underlying 'stress' levels of the livestock. I've had alk spikes/drops have no effect on SPS; and I have had them begin a tank-wide STN event. Latter is more likely if the corals are already stressed by WQ or temperatures.

If we are just talking LPS or softies, probably you will be OK.

I've long advocated buying as high quality equipment as possible, but this is particularly true with dosing devices. I would not, for example, touch the Jebao peristaltic doser with the proverbial '10 foot pole' and I wince every time somebody says 'I've been running one without problems for _______'. Just seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
Click to expand...
Did u run a jebao doser and had a disaster with it?

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