Reef nutrition

Emergency- alk rising and ph dropping to dangerous level - complete tank crash

newfly

newfly

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No dosing . I stop the dosing pump since yesterday. Alk continue to rise to 11.5 from 9.4 and ph drop to 7 in 48 hours. Alk check with Hanna and Alkatronic . Both matches

Coral started massive bleaching . Fish is not doing too well either.

I’m completely puzzled. What can cause alk to rise and ph to drop so rapidly? The chemistry in the tank is completely out of whack.

I don’t have another ph meter to confirm the alk reading.

I did 40% water change 3 days ago. Alk was fine right after the water change .
 
Turn off your lights to stress the corals less while you're gone. I'd call in sick and make sure your dosing pump isn't siphoning into the tank either (maybe clamp the line).

Do a big water change again possibly with natural sea water and confirm your salinity with a second source.
 
Thanks. Yeah, going to stay home and see if I can safe whatever I can.
Light is off.
doing another 40% water change.

Without knowing the cause , I’m afraid wc is not going to help.

I’m confident salinity is correct. I usually mix ~3.5cups of salt to ~9g of water for wc to get to get 1.025. This is what I got this morning
 
What's your nitrate? I remember RHF saying that consumption of nitrate will increase Alkalinity, perhaps there's some kind of bacterial bloom that consumed a ton of nitrate causing the alk to raise. This would also make sense with the drop in PH.

Either way... very strange and unfortunate. Hope you get it figured out!
 
Also when you did your initial water change was it the same brand of salt as the 200g box you got? From my knowledge, mixing different brands of salts could cause this—different chemistry.
I learned the hard way.
Run carbon if you have die-offs @Darkxerox?
 
Throw some prime/amquel in too just in case there's an ammonia spike. Try tasting your RODI and compare it to tap and see if maybe your RODI unit is dying/needs filter replacement.

Do you smell anything off? What's your skimmer doing?
 
The water is slightly cloudy. Bacteria bloom is likely. Mixing water now. Don’t think I can safe the coral . Will try to catch the fish.

Looks like this will be a total crash. The most frustrating part is not the outcome, but not understanding what went wrong.
 
derek_SR said:
What's your nitrate? I remember RHF saying that consumption of nitrate will increase Alkalinity, perhaps there's some kind of bacterial bloom that consumed a ton of nitrate causing the alk to raise. This would also make sense with the drop in PH.

Either way... very strange and unfortunate. Hope you get it figured out!
Click to expand...
Nitrate is ard 20-30. Higher than expected lightly because of the massive die off happening now
 
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