post-kalk disaster advice

[jimsflies]

Friday I had a kalk overfeed. My tank sat at pH 9.8 for over 9 hours while I was at work. I lost at least half of my inhabitants right away. The others are struggling to hold on to life.

I just tested my water and found that I am going through a cycle (as if alkaline burns weren't enough for the remain livestock to deal with). Ammonia is 3 ppm! Nitrites are 0 ppm and Nitrates are <5 ppm. (Nitrate is likely remaining from system prior to kalk overfeed.)

Realizing that often miracle cures don't exist and that nothing good ever seems to happen in a reef tank, I thought I would see if anyone has any good advice. I don't think I have the luxury of waiting for the tank to cycle again without moving everything out first. I maybe able to move the corals to another system. However, I'm a bit nervous about that with the main concern being even more stress from moving them and sudden changes. Also concerned about where I would house them with regard to a suitable system (granted most systems are better than mine right now).

Are there any products that could less the impact of alkaline burns on the remaining corals? Remaining corals include open brains, acans, favias, and a few other LPS.

I know there are products on the market that say they detoxify ammonia or speed up the cycling process. Does anyone have real experience that any of them work? If so, which ones?

 

[seapug]

Big, huge water change is best but if that's not an option, controlled doses on vinegar will bring the pH down. Once the params are back in line, just add a few new pieces of cured live rock to the system to re-seed it. You'll be back on track pretty quick.

 

[stee0217]

May I ask how much you dosed? I dose kalk in a system a little smaller than yours and want to avoid this. No experience with this, but water changes seem the best. Acetic acid will bring it down, but I would do it slowly since it is so high.

 

[jimsflies]

I have the pH back under control. I used some vinegar but was concerned about subsequent diatom blooms so I went to the local fast food establishment and got two super sized cups of carbonated water out of their soda system. I used small doses of that until I got the pH to 8.6.

As far as how much I dosed. My top off reservoir had emptied the night before. Being late, I turned off the top off pump so it would't try to keep topping off with no water. The next morning I filled the reservoir, turned on the top off pump, and left for work. I would guess that about one gallon of water was topped off through a fairly full reactor...meaning that by the time it pumped that much, it was probably pumping pure kalk, not just saturated kalk. Had I stuck around for 30 seconds, I might have avoided this. The tank sat for 9 hours before I arrived home and was able to start responding.

All of the sps corals are dead. Most of my fish are dead. Many of the other corals are dead. Some corals are holding on. My coralline algae is gone...the live rock only has a whitish grey coloration. After realizing today that I apparently killed off the filtration in my tank(3 ppm ammonia, no nitrites), I transferred most of the remaining corals to Preuss Pets, my LFS, for temporary housing. The tank is starting to smell of ammonia. When I removed the corals this evening, I didn't see a single brittle star, asterina, stometella snail, or pod. What I did have was lots of mucus and coral flesh nestled between the rocks.

Trust me...a big water change is not going to help anything at this point...I already changed nearly all of the water over the course of several water changes. The water changes didn't hardly move the pH when I was first dealing with this. I don't think water changes are nearly as effective as we give them credit for. I think I am going to have to hunker down and go through a complete cycle. I'm considering products like biospira that potentially could help the tank cycle a bit faster so I can get the livestock back into the system.

 

[cl2ysta1]

yikes i hate horror stories

 

[seapug]

A similar thing happened in a display tank at a store near me, but they had it back up and running a couple days later and it was fine. Just a bummer you lost all the coral colonies and fish-- stores have a little easier time replacing them than a hobbyist.

 

[jimsflies]

If I had caught it sooner, I probably could have saved more. I lost about a third of the livestock. Another 20% is hurting bad. And the rest probably will make it. I guess it could have been worse. Now I just need to work on getting the nitrifying bacteria going again so I can get the remaining livestock back into the system.