Kalk overdose!

[rottloverr]

Good evening everyone,

 

So yesterday I changed the kalk powder in my GSA kalk stirrer. I turned the pump off so it didnt pump the cloudy water into the tank. Well I forgot to turn it on this morning so when I saw how low the water in the sump (25 gallon) was I remembered to turn it back on.

 

Well... it must have disturbed the bottom turning the pump on. My display (75 gallon) tank is so cloudy with kalk you cant see in it at all. I just did a 5 gallon water change. Currently I'm making more Ro/DI water and plan to do a 10 gallon water change tomorrow night. I have some Chemi-pure elite. Should I use it?

 

Are all my coral and fish gonna die????

 

Sean

Edited August 21, 2008 by rottloverr

[Jon Lazar]

What's your tank pH? This will give you an idea how big a problem you have. Are your fish in distress, as in swimming upside down, laying on the substrate, or gasping at the surface?

 

If your water chemistry is way out of whack, meaning your pH is well outside normal limits, you might have problems. You might consider a large water change, even if you have to use tapwater treated with a dechlorinator like prime or amquel. Or you could make a smaller batch of fresh saltwater in a bucket and move your corals and fish into the bucket.

 

Jon

[jason the filter freak]

its not going to cause a whope system crash unless you freak it has happend to more than a few on here you should be fine

[rottloverr]

I just checked the PH and it was off the chart (8.8). After doing alot of reading, a bunch of ppl said not to go crazy with water changes, I also turned the lights off. If I had to guess I would say that about 1-1.5 gallons was pumped in the tank. I turned off my pump controller and was going to just manually top off the sump using regular RO/DI water.

 

I can not see in the tank at all so I cant tell what the fish are doing.

 

Sean

Edited August 21, 2008 by rottloverr

[Pat_13]

If ph is you only problem now, just add a little wht vinager to lower it to a safe level.

[Kimchi Corals]

Check this thread. Just do a search on WAMAS tons of info.

http://www.wamas.org/forums/index.php?show...c=22199&hl=

 

I had this happen and I lost just 2 SPS colonies. Although, I caught the overdose early.

 

THis is another good thread.

http://www.wamas.org/forums/index.php?show...c=20913&hl=

[bk_market]

What you need to do is just to let it calm down.

 

I did this twice and what I did was let it cool down. The more I tried to change the water and let it mix up the worse it gonna get.

 

My pH when this happen was ~10 i think or even more.

 

I went out and bought a big bottle of club soda and pour it in the tank to lower the pH slowly.

[ReeferMan]

dont add anything to the tank just back off the Kalk reactor and let everything settle to normal. Should be ok but i have lost some things in the past but usually not a whole lot.

[rottloverr]

Good morning,

 

This morning the water has cleared up considerably. There is a thin layer of kalk pretty much everywhere in the tank. I still have my kalk stirrer/top off system off for the moment. Nothing seemed to be showing any ill effects as of this morning. Even my sun coral was in full bloom.

 

Thank you everyone for helping out. I kinda felt like I would have paniced if I did not have such good support knowing I would get sound advice.

 

Sean

[Freezerburn]

glad to hear the storm is over, gratz on the save!

[bk_market]

Funny thing but this happen to me twice and when the water clear off all my corals showed lotsa poly extension too .