If it wasn't broken than why did I try to fix it

[acroholicreefer]

I have been successfully running sps system for nearly 6 years. The acros have always been healthy with bright colors and good polyp extension. There are a few rules that I have always followed.

1) Skim Well

2) Use a Kalk Reactor with float valve, dosing pump, and pH monitor

3) Heating elements with temperature controller

4) Turbulent Flow

5) MH Lighting

To be honest, I rarely test for any of my parameters besides salinity and alkalinity. The mixing pump to the kalk reactor got clogged and I didn't realize it for a while. The alkalinity dropped down to 5 dKH. Still, the acros look as good as they have in the past, maybe even better. Polyp extension as really good too. Well, 5 dKH just bothered me. I don't know why but I decided to hook up my 2 part dosing pump that I rarely have ever used and dose some soda ash. If it wasn't broken than why did I try to fix it. The apex was set to turn the pump on for 5 minutes every hour and I fixed the kalk reactor mixing pump.

My alkalinity shot up to 15 dKH. I noticed this when I came home from work and my pH was 8.6. All of my birdsnest looked horrible but my acros and montis looked a little bit stressed. Polyp extension was decreased but still extended. I decided to take the kalk reactor off line and turn the dosing pump on. Today (two days later) I came home and saw tissue loss for the first time on a few wild corals that I have cultured for about a year. They all had dull colors anyways so I don't mind loosing them. The alkalinity is now 13.5 and I'm just going to let it lower slowly and on it's own. All of my true aquacultured acros look fine with decent polyp extension and those are the ones I care about.

Luckily, I feel like I am over the worst of things and they will get better. You live and you learn. I learned that since I have never dosed soda ash before, I'm not going to do it anymore. Also, just goes to justify how much more hardier true aquacultured corals are vs cultured wild corals.

 

[Reef264]

My Condolences...

 

[reefnut81564]

You don't think waiting longer for your levels to fix themselves is dangerous? Why not help the process a bit with a water change? I've waited too long once and lost almost everything.

True though, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

 

[acroholicreefer]

My Condolences...

Thanks. Hopefully I dodged a bullet.

You don't think waiting longer for your levels to fix themselves is dangerous? Why not help the process a bit with a water change? I've waited too long once and lost almost everything.

True though, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Yeah, I did a water change this morning but I only have IO salt. The alkalinity in the fresh batch of sw was 10 dKH. The alkalinity in the tank water is 13 dKH. I'm not sure if it is going to be a huge help but it is better than nothing.

 

[oscarslr]

could have been worst

 

[rtbm]

that would qualify as an extreme alk swing. I would still do another smaller water change or two , then let it come down on it's own.

I have seen the effects of alk swings last about three weeks before damage starts to reverse itself. Don't make any other changes to there environment over the course. and they should recover.

Then try to get in the habit of testing at least alk once a week. preferably daily.

My guess is that if they aren't dead yet they will be fine. Just give them a month or so. have you always kept it at 5 prior to this?

 

[acroholicreefer]

Yeah, I hope everything that has made it so far is going to hold on. I might have to frag up my a. valida and possibly another couple of pieces since they have started to RTN but I'm going to give them another day to see if the necrosis has stopped.

I agree that a better testing routine would have prevented all of this but everything was looking good so I didn't even mess with it. This whole situation was defiantly an user error. I noticed the low alkalinity when the corals started showing some serious polyp extension. That kind of set off an alarm that the carbonate life could be pretty low. I don't know if that makes any real sense or not.

I usually try to keep my alkalinity around 7-8 dKH. The kalk reactor with a mixing pump alone has always been able to maintain my system around those levels. It seems that my alkalinity is dropping at about .3 dKH per day. I might go and get some Oceanic Salt vs IO since it is usually between 7-8 dKH.

 

[acroholicreefer]

Update - As of this morning, the alkalinity is down to 12.7 dKH. So far, I have only lost 1 colony that I cultured. This one never really seemed to healthy anyways so it is not too much of a surprise that it did not make it. A few others had started to RTN but they seem to have stopped now. It seems like I am over the necrosis and have dodged a disaster.

 

[tibob32]

How fast does your pump dose at? in a 120g, to go from 5.5 to 15 dkh, you need to dose over 800ml of Randy recipe soda ash. Maybe your pump got stuck on?

 

[acroholicreefer]

Yeah, I don't really know why it shot up. The dosing pump is set up on an apex to run for 5 minutes every hour. That must have been way too much but the total water volume is about 250g (120g + 100g + sump). Maybe my mix was bad.

The alkalinity is reading 12.09 this morning. For some reason, it doesn't want to drop below 12.00. It would still make me feel much better if I could get it down to around 10. The kalk reactor is still offline but I don't know if I should put it back online or not.

So far I have had about a 20% lost of acro. Most of these are some that I have been culturing for about a year. It is not as bad as it seems because most of these are corals that I could do without. Almost all of the aquacultured acros have made it, only loosing two small frags.

Does anybody else keep their alkalinity at 12.00?