TheClark

The first 4 cups were within 10 minutes of the overdose, system is about 500 gallons. After that, waited, watched PH. Kept at it. Today my alk is dropping rapidly, perhaps too rapidly. 14.17 Just now. Might bring the CR back on line with high effluent PH just to slow down the drop. I feel like an idiot sometimes in this hobby. Honestly it stinks to share these stories, but figure it will help the collective reefing group. I don't even pretend to be perfect, this is a challenging hobby, we are all elite to achieve success at any level!

Sounds like what I did accidentally! I am stunned that anything survived. We fight so hard to keep alk stable. Then this!!??

Random Pics from various dates. First is December 9th, 5 days after event. Too bad high alk doesn't kill bubble algae!

TLDR; I massively overdosed my system with Kalk due to carelessness. Despite record setting (for me) params in PH and Alk, pretty much everything is fine. Epic charts below... Details ================== Sharing in case it happens to someone else and it is quite interesting to me that things turned out the way they did. Had a brilliant idea while swapping out my reactor media a couple of weeks ago. Let's get the kalk reactor back online. Oh shoot, my peristaltic for the dedicated kalk outlet is down. I will just run it with topoff peristaltic instead. Pretty common right? So I hooked it up to the ATO line and got busy swapping the reactor media out of the reactor. Problem is I did not copy over all the APEX failsafe settings from the dedicated kalk outlet though. It has time limits, and PH limits to prevent an overdose. The ATO failsafes are quite a bit different. So, while changing the reactor, this of course took water out of the system, and the ATO turned on, and kalk reactor came into play. Unnoticed by me of course. A bit later, I stepped back for a moment, and the tank was cloudy. That's weird! PH was reading over 12 in a very short time... UH OH! Google to the rescue. This response from RHF was the best: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/help-kalk-overload.196677/ I ended up adding 9, yes 9 cups of vinegar to the system. Warned my son, I probably killed everything, not much we can do (his system is tied into mine). The article did give hope though... As expected, the Alk was off the charts, but this was to be expected per the link above due to the kalk suspended in the water affecting the test. So I patiently waited for days, alk eventually went so high it could not be tested at all. I checked with red sea and Triton, nothing could read alk. Trident displays 0.0 in this case, reefbot fails because the colors never change. Finally last night I dumped in the 10th cup of vinegar. Finally, the APEX could read alk again! I was at 14.8 or so... Tonight it is 14.79. Of course, both the CR and Kalk are offline, going to let it slowly recede. Maybe some vinegar here and there. You would think it would be a coral bloodbath. A ghost town, and RTN massive bleaching event. Coral surprisingly looks quite good. A plate coral and a stylophora are showing stress, that's it. 12.1 PH Spike Followed By 9 cups of vinegar: Alk goes 14.7 plus, then finally 0 on trident. Turns into this:

That's cool, I had no idea SB had a new line.

To the girl with the salty thumb, happy birthday! (green thumb, reef edition)

Good to know! Keeping 600 gallons that hot makes for a hot office and a big power bill!

I like this one! Like a gb avatar but different!

Seriously though. Get ready for an incredible journey, its gonna be epic, and you will be an incredible dad no doubt. So very happy for you!

Jim has an amazing collection! We are doing some trading for sure, thanks Sean!

She needs a nano tank right away! Get that kid started young!

CONGRATS!!!

Right! Much higher survival rate that nature. No doubt any clown you raised hit the reef lottery and has a good life. Either way, sorry for the loss of that little guy. They are so darn adorable which doesn't make it easier.

Buy or trade, lets see what you got! Love the paint splatter looking rainbow ones. Have a decent number myself.

My latest experiment goals are 5 ppm nitrate and .1-.2 phosphate. Seems ok? I dose sodium nitrate 12 times a day to spread it out, and lanthium chloride. Disclaimer: Not even close to a dino expert, just sharing data not conclusions.

Ugh, so sorry! Sadly, we all have those buckets of dead coral aka 'calcium reactor media' due to unexplained losses. Even the absolute masters. You are very thorough and careful, so it is extra frustrating no doubt. My advice FWIW is about the same, let it run its course, then slowly rebuild again. Here is a different angle to consider as well. Definitely watch for fish that might be picking on coral, that can wreak havoc and they can be oh so sneaky about it. Had a flame angel that did serious damage before I noticed despite what felt like good chemistry. Thought I had that one reef safe guy, but they can turn at any time. Had him a long time before it happened. Another random thought... If you have an attached frag system, it is a great control for experiments as the water chemistry should be darn near identical in both tanks. That eliminates a ton of variables if one tank is thriving, one suffering.

Legal to have a small amount of bubble algae in Oregon

Forgot to get those pellets, but they ate flakes immediately. So cool the other clown adopted them, truly seems happier having some pals (since non are female! 😂)

Sounds good!

Found it, this is a CB Goku. Near identical to this: https://cornbredcorals.com/products/cornbreds-goku-chalice Yet my pictures barely capture the orange. In a rare occurrance, CB's picture is more true to life than mine 😂 #notavendor

It's part of a 600 gallon system, but this tank is a 60 gallon cube. I am keeping them there until they are a little bigger. AKA not 'snack sized' for the bigger guys! 😂

Love it! With local clown breeders, that dream can become a reality! MACNA is on that bucket list too

Never mind that bubble algae, this is my son's tank 🤣

Always wanted a clutch! Thank you @Pennywise

Incredible fish, great guy, highly recommend!