OMG, I'm freaking out and so are my fish

[MarkO]

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid - with a capital S!
Last night I noticed my alk and pH were VERY high (pH off the chart >8.6, and Alk @13.2. So Stupid me, I decide to add 20% HCl to the sump. Well last night, loked ok, but this AM I saw only my 2 clowns swimming (I have 14 fish). I panicked, threw on the lights, and cheked pH and Alk. Alk reading 8.0, but pH was off the chart (<7.4). In a panic I grabbed some baking soda and started adding spoonfuls to the sump (50 gal sump w/ 150 gal tank). KEeping the sump at about 8.2, I've been continuously adding. Half of my fish are on their sides but breathing. Of course it's the expensive fish having troubles! Damn.
Right now tank pH is about 7.6, but I doin't know if I should rapidly raise it up to the 8.0 range or take more time. I'm afraid I'm going to shock them more.

As for corals, seem to be taking it better, but time will tell.

Powder Blue and purple are swimming around (yay), but lethargically.
No signs of my Yellow Coris yet, but he's prolly still camping out under gravel. Flame angel was on her side, but can't find her.

Ahh, crap. Man do I feel dumb!

 

[TBoisvert]

What about a 20 - 30% water change. Maybe that will help eveyone and everything feel a little better.

Tam

 

[MarkO]

Fish are all accounted for. pH is now at 7.85 in tank. It's like night and day the way they look now. I just added a littel flake and all are eating. I don't know what happens in the water when the pH reaches lower than 7.4, but it seems like the oxygen drops to a suffocating level. Because in only a matter of about 30 minutes, they are all swimming around now like nothing happened. A few are beat up a bit. I'm guessing they were lying on a stinging coral.
I'm still quite a bit concerned. Im not sure what possible side effects I may experience.
Ugghhh.

 

[One Eye]

I'd keep raising it slowly, the way you have been. To quick and you'll shock them, slowly and they should start to move around and return to old behavior during the process.

Speaking of stupid. I moved my mantis into a 20 gal acrylic tank. It's the only tank I have that doesn't have an auto top off. The water was a little low and I was working in the other tanks anyway so I just took the tubing that's hooked to my rodi and let it run into the mantis tank. Got a call to go fishing. When I got home, luckily the water had spilled on the floor and Deb shut down the rodi, but the salinity was at 1.000!!

The mantis was laying on his side, and having read that they are very delicate when it comes to temp and gravity I figured he was a gonner. I slowly added a little salt to the tank, dropping it right in front of the return nozzle. After a couple hrs the tank was at 1.020 and he was moving around again. I left it low over night and brought it up to 1.023 the next day. He's still fine.

 

[Moe_K]

Whew. Some close calls for both of you.
Mark, do you know what caused the pH spike to begin the whole problem?
I hope the fish all pull thru for you, with no ich outbreaks. Fingers crossed here.

 

[MarkO]

It's mostly my own fault. I've jsut finished up building my calcium reactor, but in the process ran out of calcium 2 weeks ago (but not alkalinity, 2 part B-Ionic), anyway, that in addition to fighting a cyano outbreak, I cut my feedings to almost nil, ran the protein skimmer, and removed all algae (thinking it may be dino.). I think the combination of the cyano fight, and the adding of alkalinity in same concentrations as before resulted in the high reading of 13.2. Did I mention my calcium dropped to 250 during that 2 week stretch?
Anyway, my last full set of testing was done a month ago. At that time calcium, alk and pH were normal.

 

[TBoisvert]

Marko, I usually keep my alk between 12.6 and 13.6 - I have never had a problem. My ph stays between 8.2 - 8.4, with calc at 440.

I have no issues there, and usually if the alk gets higher than that I just let it be and it comes down by itself within a day.

 

[MarkO]

I just did more testing.
My pH = 8.0,
Calcium = 350,
but Alk is still very high.
Any ideas on how I can lower it without affecting pH?

 

[TBoisvert]

what is your alk reading

 

[MarkO]

In my panic this morning to bump up the pH, I added alkalinity from 8.0 to a reading of 16.0 (or even more!)

 

[TBoisvert]

oh, Lord! Does anyone agree with me here that a 20% water change may help this situation? I just am not one to try to raise and lower readings by chemicals... it always seems to change things too hastily.
Wish I could be more help.
Tammie

 

[Lam]

but Alk is still very high.
Any ideas on how I can lower it without affecting pH?

Water change....

Hope everything goes well soon. Keep us updated.

 

[MarkO]

Water change is on the way. Waiting on RO/Di. 20% will tanke me 24 hrs to make

 

[Matt L.]

Mark,

I would suggest changing as much of the water as possible. I would do a 50% water change, wait a week, and then do another 50% water change.

If your RO/DI unit can't keep up, then I would go buy some RO/DI ASAP. You're going to need to do that water change because you have undoubtedly messed witht he ion balance and buffering of your tank, the latter naturally attenuates pH swings. Without it....

Skiptons sells RO/DI water, and I'm sure other sources have it too. Keep a Rubbermaid garbage can full of RO/DI in the future. I use two of those blue plastic barrels so I always have my tank's volume in RO/DI on standby.

What makes you think the alkalinity measurement is correct? Test kits are notorious for being inaccurate, especially if it is older and a reagent has expired. If you're ever in doubt, especially over a bogus reading, take your sample in to a LFS and have them check your Alkalinity. Calcium and alkalinity test kits are known to be inaccurate.

Never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never (never) add acid or baking soda straight to your sump to correct a problem. It is neither practical nor possible for you to figure out with any accuracy the impact it would have.

It would be a terrible shame to have livestock die because of a faulty test kit.

The moral of the story here is never overreact by over compensating. This is my plug for not testing your water, or more accurately, not testing very often. IF your temperature is okay, and your pH is okay, your calcium reactor is at least running on the propper bubble count, and all your fish, corals, and inverts seem okay (clams open, SPS not dying), then chances are 99% that everything in your tank is okay. Test for the rest every once in a while, and always get a second opinion (have your LFS verify your measurement)

Matt

P.S.: I just realized that I have at least 50gal of RO/DI in my basement. I can always make more, and as this constitutes an emergency, if you bring the containers to my house, I can pump to them. Let me know if you would like to stop by tomorrow and pick up 50gal of RO/DI. Its got very low TDS (often <1)

 

[~Flighty~]

I've got rodi ready if you need it.

 

[Moe_K]

Mark, if you want I can collect some RO/DI for you starting tonight. I've got a 100 gpd unit. Problem is, I don't have any big containers. I could probably work something out, though. I think PenMan might be able to loan me/you a big container.
We're just down 495 from you.
Just post here if you want some water.
Hell, this is turning into a modern day bucket brigade.

 

[MarkO]

It was a VERY VERY STUPID move adding the acid to my sump to correct a problem that may not have existed in the first place. My alkalinity may have been within an acceptable range, and/or I may have a faulty test kit. But all I know for sure is that my fish had a very adverse reaction to the acid. My pH was off the scale (<7.4), so adding the baking soda was the only thing I could think of to get my pH back up to a normal range. I added it to the sump slowly, maintaining a pH in the sump of about 8.2, and it only took about 5-10 minutes before the fish started to react positively to it.
Matt, you are right, I should not have added the acid/soda in the first place without first doing some serious thinking and home work. Also, doing water changes has helped. I've done (2) 15% water changes since (one Friday, the other last night). My numbers are all coming back into range, but just as importantly, my fish and corals look to be 100%. I can not believe the resiliency of these little buggers. So far no signs of ich. I've got my fingers crossed.
Oh, and by the way, the reason this experiment happened in the first place was I got a frag of Zoos that were not opening up. So if there is anything I got out of this is NEVER sacrafice your whole tank for one frag. Chances are the person that gave you the frag will most likely give you another if the first one didn't work out.
Also, thanks guys for help and offers. It's great knowing there are others out there to help when in an emergency.