An almost tank crash 2part additive

[Tutmos]

I came into the office Sunday with the kids to check on things and noticed that my LPS were retracted and a number of the SPS didn't have great PE. Well I look under the tank and see the water level is fine, the PH is okay and temp is fine. I then look at one of my 2 part resevoirs and notice it's empty. Eventhough the pumps are on top of the tanks and the hoses route above it which should have stopped any siphon it still managed to. The little flex hose section that runs under the rollers came off the nipple and the whole hose assembly fell down into the water draining about 2 gallons of CaCl 2part additive into the sump. One SPS was completely bare when I got there, which is lame because it was one that had been pretty beat up in the past and was now starting to grow well. As of Monday now it looks like 3 others that had always been iffy are going to bite it with the remaining 20-30 looking okay with no tissue loss etc. I'm surprised I didn't see more material precipitating out and coating things. Lesson learned, tie the feed tubes up somehow so they can't fall down below the resevoir level. Honestly this is better than if they had been on the ground and drained all over the carpet, two gallons of CaCl would be annoying to clean up, if I recall it gets sticky.

Kevin W.

[David Grigor]

That's defiantely one of the drawbacks to the concentrated 2 part methods. Something goes wrong with the dosing can be serious so automation needs to be very well thought out and planned for....

[John_Salmon]

Glad that you were able to mimize you loss though. must have been that fisher intuision that wanted you to go to the office on Sunday.

[Tutmos]

I did a little 5 gallon water change mainly to clean out some accumulated poop in a corner (bare bottom tank) on Sunday after this and thought about doing a big water change but what purpose would that serve? The excess calcium should precipitate out and slowly come back into balance with normal addition of the alkalinity component I would think. I'm guessing it's best to just leave it alone now and skip calcium additions for awhile and let the alk still dose at slightly higher than normal rates. Doing a big water change would cause another big shift in conditions and act as an even larger stress I would expect.

I should just be happy it wasn't the Alkalinity component that did this because of the massive PH shift it would have caused.

[Tutmos]

So I tested Calcium today with a Salifert kit. What do you think it is if it takes 1.56ml to titrate? Is it linear beyond the printed scale? I don't remember titration curves as being linear. Obviously it's really high, KH dropped down to 7.0 dKH so I'm dosing that at a higher than normal rate to bring down the calcium, any opinions?

Kevin W.

[Hydroman]

What about doing a dilution? 50% tank water and 50% DI That could get you in the range of the test and double the result.