Urgent help needed

#1
I need help/advice on what to do. While I was away from home, my timer that controls my dosing pumps defaulted to on. This led to a ridiculous amount of 2 part being dosed. I just measured and my ALK is around 15!!!!!! What do I do? I don't understand how it happened but I need to know what to do. Should I be rushing down to aquamart to get some saltwater to do a massive water change or just let it come down on its own and not dose for awhile? The water is super cloudy. Please help me!
 

CRW Reef

Blue Whale
M.A.S.C Club Member
ex-officio
#2
Re: Urgent help needed

I would start with at least a 25% if not a 50% water change for sure.
 
#4
Well, I'm a SW noob too, so take this advice for what its worth. But I would definitely do a H20 change. How big is an unknown to me. Maybe 1/5 or 1/10 the tank volume, or maybe more. A H20 change should help get things back to normal quickly. Unless you have something in your tank that uses the ALK quickly, I would go the water change route.
 

JuanGutz

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#7
15 isn't that bad is it? It'll probably **** things off but should be hard to get ahold of and not have to bad of an effect on the tank? More asking a question haha is 15 really bad, I have a nano that is consistently at 12 but hasn't bothered anything not even a nem....
 

ailachami

Tang
M.A.S.C Club Member
#8
Urgent help needed

JuanGutz;231655 said:
15 isn't that bad is it? It'll probably **** things off but should be hard to get ahold of and not have to bad of an effect on the tank? More asking a question haha is 15 really bad, I have a nano that is consistently at 12 but hasn't bothered anything not even a nem....
depend on what it was before. if it was 8-9 and jumped to 15+. that's almost twice
 

ReefCheif

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
Platinum Sponsor
#9
50% water change ASAP, follwed up by a 25 - 30% water change in a day or 2
 
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Cake_Boss

Blue Whale
M.A.S.C Club Member
#10
Re: Urgent help needed

A wise man once told me that I should let it go down naturally. He said the only thing more stressful than an alk spike is a rapid alk drop, even if back to "normal".

My story, I was keeping my alk @ 9dKh, well my test kit lied to me and it was actually 17 dKh. Things lost color and had terrible PE. Long story short, it went down in a week.
 

ReefCheif

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
Platinum Sponsor
#11
IMO I would say it would depend on what your tanks stocked with. If you have just softies youll be fine doing water changes to bring it down, but if your SPS heavy I would let it fall naturally.
 
#13
Thanks everyone for the quick replies. My alk beforehand was 11.5 (tested yesterday). I am zoas dominated so when I saw Chad had responded I decided to immediately listen. I did about 35% water change which brought alk down to 11. The water is pretty cloudy still. Should I put in some accuclear and filter floss or just let it settle on it's own? The only things that seem ****ed are a few acans and my clam (but that could just be because of the pyramid snails I have been battling). I sure am learning how to deal with the bad stuff a little to often for my taste right now.:frusty: Any suggestions about clearing the water up would be appreciated!
Thanks guys!!!
 

ReefCheif

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
Platinum Sponsor
#14
Run some carbon, should help
 

daverf

Tang
M.A.S.C Club Member
#15
did you research adding vinegar for an alkalinity emergency? may cause a temporary bacterial bloom (thereby trading cloudy for cloudy) but at least could solve the alkalinity issue.
 

Aaron

Cyano
M.A.S.C Club Member
#17
One of my timers failed OFF (thank the gods) in December. I thought they were good because they were the ones that BRS recommends. My recommendation would be to get a reefkeeper lite (bare minimum). I realize now that I shouldn't have tried to save a few bucks in the first place. Now I have RKL's on all of my tanks.
 

CRW Reef

Blue Whale
M.A.S.C Club Member
ex-officio
#20
Re: Urgent help needed

It's a zoa dominated tank right? Of course only time will tell but got any updates? Also how is the Ca looking?
 
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