Opps! Too much kalk...

[jdewolftx]

I had a minor oops where I remembered I turned off my ATO because I mixed new kalk. The next day I realized that I had left it off and I plugged it back in and walked away.

Duh....the evaporated water needed to be replenished and when I came back several minutes later it was still dosing kalk into the sump. We are talking maybe 1/3 gallon into a 75 gallon system. My apex showed the PH spike from 8.17 to 8.45. I added in a bunch of RO/DI but have stopped short of overdoing it and reaching for the vinegar.

Is this correct? I know that generally the rule of thumb is go slow with PH. Also, from what I can tell, 8.45 is not a major event as some people have dosed 5 gallons into their tank and even lived to tell about it.

Should I just monitor it for a few hours and see where it is at by the morning?

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

-Jeff

[twon8]

You will be fine. I've clouded my tank several times before with no ill effects.


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[Flippers4pups]

This doesn't happen to me ever (well at least a couple times in ten years) two weeks ago I was doing a water change and forgot to turn off my ATO pump. Before I caught it, it dumped 5 gallons of kalkwasser top off into my sump. The DT turned very cloudy. Next day it was clear. 200 gal total water volume.

No harm to anything. Fish or corals. Small increase in PH and alk. SG dropped to 1.024. Raised that slowly by switching the top off to SW and watched it over the course of three days till it was back to 1.026.

These things happen. You'll be fine.

[bertoni]

8.45 is a safe pH level, so I wouldn't worry much. Most tanks come through overdoses like this, and even bigger overdoses, without any troubles.

[jdewolftx]

Thanks all. Nice to know I am not the only one. I will keep an eye on it and report back.

-Jeff

[tmz]

I agree 8.45 shouldn't be an issue and will come down on it's own. An alk swing might be an issue but that's not highly likely at those levels. I wouldn't use CO2 for this level; if I needed to add CO2 to drop the pH, seltzer would be my choice, since vinegar/acetic acid adds organic carbon.

[oseymour]

This happened to me recently. My corals were all fine.

With some hot days in the last couple of weeks, my fans were running all the time and my ATO dosed a lot of kalk. My alk was high but my corals again were fine.

I switched to 2 part for the summer because it's harder to predict evaporation.