Kalk Disaster!

[Mr. Ugly]

Hehe... ok, it's more like a pseudo disaster, but it's pretty scary looking

Came home this evening to this:

Top down:

Finding Nemo... are you in there?

Looks like everything is fine. Not really an overdose.

I'd added just a little water to my kalk reservoir this morning. It looked a bit low and I didn't want to deal with adjusting alk/Ca if the pump sucked air.

I had about an hour or so for the kalk to settle before the pump was due to come on, but apparently that was cutting it a bit close. I suspect enough particulates got dosed that they acted as nucleation sites for carbonate precipitation.

pH was just slightly up, and I added just under 50ml of vinegar to the tank. I probably could have just let it go without the vinegar.

I unplugged my dosing pump and will just leave everything alone for the next day or so.

I'll test alk/Ca/Mg tomorrow after things clear up.

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Hmm... I think I'll filter some of the water and test it tonight just to get an idea if I dropped my alk/Ca way low due to precipitation.

 

[seminolecpa]

You may want to give you pumps a nice bath of vinegar too. I guarantee they are covered and may seize up.

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Yup, probably a good idea.

There's a light coating of calcium carbonate dust on stuff in there right now.

Corals are looking pretty good though.

Probably didn't dose more than a quart of the cloudy kalk early this morning.

 

[seminolecpa]

You can guarantee that that same dust is accumulating on your impellars and in the housing. I would try to get as much off the glass and blow stuff around with a turkey baster, change some water out then take the pumps out one at a time and clean.

Can you tell I did this to my tank before?

 

[Thales]

That used to happen to me from time to time in my old setup, the 50. No problems except to scare the bejesus out of me. It did however, seem to kill all my bryopsis though I haven't had the guts to try it on purpose.

 

[sfsuphysics]

That same thing happened when I did the 2-part dose and baked the baking soda, don't know why, I followed directions to the T, but for whatever reason when I poured the alkalinity part in, POOF it'd precipitate like crazy, after a while it'd get caked on all the glass faces of my sump, and as Bryan mentioned, the impellers got a nice protective coating on them as well.

Btw, Welcome back(??) Rich

 

[tuberider]

And that's as close as we get to seeing Norman's tank......

 

[Apon]

At least you were calm enough to take pictures....it kind of looks like a spawning event too.

 

[Ibn]

Jeebus. Reminds me of a bacterial outbreak in FW tanks, but worse.

Rich, welcome back. BTW, you don't happen to remember how much of an OD when it nuked the bryopsis do you?

 

[Paradox]

Little off topic, but I read here that using high magnesium kills their Bryosis. Ive only read the first couple pages though.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1113109

"And that's as close as we get to seeing Norman's tank......"

I was thinking the same thing. Id like to see some pics of your tank as well. Dont make us rely on mini disasters to get a sneak peek. =)

 

[Mr. Ugly]

[quote author=Thales link=topic=2921.msg31208#msg31208 date=1201620072]It did however, seem to kill all my bryopsis though I haven't had the guts to try it on purpose.
[/quote]

Probably a result from the pH spike.

My bryopsis all melted away after about 2 weeks of dosing kalk

I'd switched from 2(3) part to kalk. No calcium reactor, so pH settled in on the high side.

 

[Mr. Ugly]

[quote author=sfsuphysics link=topic=2921.msg31209#msg31209 date=1201620651]
That same thing happened when I did the 2-part dose and baked the baking soda, don't know why, I followed directions to the T, but for whatever reason when I poured the alkalinity part in, POOF it'd precipitate like crazy, after a while it'd get caked on all the glass faces of my sump, and as Bryan mentioned, the impellers got a nice protective coating on them as well.[/quote]

I remember you'd been dosing 2 part like crazy and the levels still wouldn't come up. Wasn't that due to low Mg on your setup? Mg inhibits abiotic calcification.

From one of Randy's articles:

Calcium Carbonate Precipitation: Low Magnesium



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Calcium carbonate is the most common precipitate that forms in reef aquaria, and often forms on pumps and heaters. As described above, calcium carbonate is supersaturated in seawater and in nearly all reef aquarium systems. In the ocean, calcium carbonate is supersaturated by a factor of about three to five.

So why doesn't it immediately precipitate? There are several reasons that calcium carbonate does not, under normal conditions, rapidly precipitate, turning the water cloudy with a white precipitate. The biggest factor is magnesium. Once a tiny crystal of calcium carbonate begins to form, magnesium pushes its way onto the calcium carbonate surface, and occupies a site that would normally have been occupied by calcium. These magnesium ions poison the surface against more accumulation of calcium carbonate as it no longer looks like a crystal of calcium carbonate to incoming calcium and carbonate ions, and precipitation stops.

Magnesium is present in natural seawater at about 1280 ppm. If magnesium is well below natural levels, then its effect on calcium carbonate precipitation may be ineffective, allowing precipitation to take place more rapidly than otherwise. Aquarists experiencing such precipitation might consider testing for magnesium, and supplementing if its level is not at least 1250 ppm. I usually recommend targeting magnesium at about 1250-1350 ppm. Exactly how low it needs to be before it begins to allow calcium carbonate precipitation is not known exactly. However, the relative impact of low magnesium in this context depends on the relative pressure for calcium carbonate precipitation to take place (which is shown in other sections of this article to be determined primarily by the calcium concentration, alkalinity, temperature and pH).

 

[Mr. Ugly]

[quote author=tuberider link=topic=2921.msg31215#msg31215 date=1201629696]
And that's as close as we get to seeing Norman's tank......
[/quote]

Haha... my tank is too ugly for FTS. I never reaquascaped properly after I removed my DSB way back when. And there are ugly egg crate holders at the front of the tank

Here's an old old pic

 

[Mr. Ugly]

[quote author=Apon link=topic=2921.msg31218#msg31218 date=1201631627]
At least you were calm enough to take pictures....it kind of looks like a spawning event too.
[/quote]

Well, when I didn't see a bunch of sloughing corals, and I saw that the fish were all happily swimming around, I figured there was no need to panic.

I'd RTFM'd before in one of Randy's articles about kalk overdose being self limiting to a degree, so once I verified that my siphon break was still ok, and the digital pump timer didn't somehow fail-on, I knew there wasn't much of any overdose.

I use a digital timer because I want to dose a known amount of kalk. I didn't want to use a float switch and have a doser come on based on sump level that could vary for a lot of reasons... like maybe a skimmer goes nuts because something died or someone fed some gelcubes and the kalk topoff replaces 2 gallons that got skimmed out and another gallon that evaporated.

That's not even talking about stuck float switches which seem more likely than a digital timer failing on. Ever listen to a float switch go into buzzer mode when the water level triggers it to go on/off? Sooner or later, those contacts are going to be burnt and pitted from all that sparking. I've replaced enough relays that have welded their contacts closed.

Anyway, I figured to take some pics and maybe have some info on what to do or not do in case it ever happens to someone else

 

[Mr. Ugly]

[quote author=Paradox link=topic=2921.msg31249#msg31249 date=1201650738]
Little off topic, but I read here that using high magnesium kills their Bryosis. Ive only read the first couple pages though.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1113109
[/quote]

Mg dosing didn't work for some people too. I wonder if Mg allowed pH to climb in cases where Mg was abnormally low to begin with.

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Anyway, as long as pH is 8.6 or below, you pretty much can just leave the tank alone.

If higher, you can dose vinegar at a rate of 1ml/gallon to drop pH by .3

pH on the tank yesterday was a little over 8.6 and I ended up going for a guestimated .2 decrease with the vinegar.

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Ok, tested Alk/Ca/Mg this evening.

Alk is waay low at 1.8 meq/l (5.0 dkh)
Ca is 375 ppm
Mg is 1375

I dosed:

150ml diy 2 part Alk
250ml diy 2 part Ca

I'll do another 150 of each in the morning, fine tune it in the evening, and put the kalk doser back on if everything is looking good.

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Current pic. Tank as pretty much been cleaning itself up

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Alk is at 2.3 meq/l (6.4 dkh)

Another 150 ml of Ca and alk 2 part.