mcarroll
10K Club member
So, I managed to get almost 5 years into my SPS tank before finally having an issue with precipitation. That's not so noteworhthy, but the fact that I can't seem to get it to stop has got me stumped.
What happened - in a nutshell - was that I was trying out a pair of dosing pumps, got too confident and too busy at the same time and stopped testing. As it turned out, there was a problem with the dosers and when I started paying attention again Alk was at almost 2.0 meq/L, Ca around 300 ppm and Mg around 1100 ppm.
In making the correction to the Ca/Alk/Mg chemistry I obviously overdid one or all of them as about 30 minutes or so after dosing, the whole tank turned milky white. This was more than a little surprising....I've never read of a delayed reaction like that. I typically gauge my dosing speed by whether I see a little cloud of precipitation where the alk drips are hitting the water (or not) and how fast the little cloud dissipates...a little cloud that dissipates within a second or so has never been an issue and I never exceeded that standard this go-around.
Anyway, once the cloudiness subsided I cleaned all my pumps with a soak in vinegar and scraped down the light layer of precipitation that had formed on the sump walls and tank walls.
Here's the really weird part (for me anyway): Even after some water changes (4 x 10%), dosing Mg and Ca back up to spec (1350, 400) I can't get Alk to stay anywhere above 3.0 and I'm still scraping the precipitate off the sides of my sump at the water line every single day. (Ca isn't going below 370 and Mg is staying at 1350.)
Basically every round of dosing I do now - no matter how dilute, how slowly dripped, or how much I crank up the flow in the dosing area of the sump (currently Korallia 2 using the flow concentrator and pointed up at the surface right where the Alk drips - results in the sump glass being cloudy with precipitate. Pumps in the sump are still getting chalky residue and are needing weekly (instead of yearly or so) vinegar soaks. FWIW, flow-through in the sump is about 500-600 gph (which is more than it's ever been....plus I recently added the Korallia to keep the surface agitated).
What the heck is going on? Is there just so much chalk in the tank due to said precipitation event that now there's so much "seed" surface it just doesn't stay in the water?
Does this mean I have to break down the tank? Would switching to baking soda possibly help?
Thanks for any advice....this is very disturbing. Going on two weeks of this now. (I can't keep going in this shape...vinegar and two-part are gonna get expensive fast!)
-Matt
What happened - in a nutshell - was that I was trying out a pair of dosing pumps, got too confident and too busy at the same time and stopped testing. As it turned out, there was a problem with the dosers and when I started paying attention again Alk was at almost 2.0 meq/L, Ca around 300 ppm and Mg around 1100 ppm.
In making the correction to the Ca/Alk/Mg chemistry I obviously overdid one or all of them as about 30 minutes or so after dosing, the whole tank turned milky white. This was more than a little surprising....I've never read of a delayed reaction like that. I typically gauge my dosing speed by whether I see a little cloud of precipitation where the alk drips are hitting the water (or not) and how fast the little cloud dissipates...a little cloud that dissipates within a second or so has never been an issue and I never exceeded that standard this go-around.
Anyway, once the cloudiness subsided I cleaned all my pumps with a soak in vinegar and scraped down the light layer of precipitation that had formed on the sump walls and tank walls.
Here's the really weird part (for me anyway): Even after some water changes (4 x 10%), dosing Mg and Ca back up to spec (1350, 400) I can't get Alk to stay anywhere above 3.0 and I'm still scraping the precipitate off the sides of my sump at the water line every single day. (Ca isn't going below 370 and Mg is staying at 1350.)
Basically every round of dosing I do now - no matter how dilute, how slowly dripped, or how much I crank up the flow in the dosing area of the sump (currently Korallia 2 using the flow concentrator and pointed up at the surface right where the Alk drips - results in the sump glass being cloudy with precipitate. Pumps in the sump are still getting chalky residue and are needing weekly (instead of yearly or so) vinegar soaks. FWIW, flow-through in the sump is about 500-600 gph (which is more than it's ever been....plus I recently added the Korallia to keep the surface agitated).
What the heck is going on? Is there just so much chalk in the tank due to said precipitation event that now there's so much "seed" surface it just doesn't stay in the water?
Does this mean I have to break down the tank? Would switching to baking soda possibly help?
Thanks for any advice....this is very disturbing. Going on two weeks of this now. (I can't keep going in this shape...vinegar and two-part are gonna get expensive fast!)
-Matt
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