Need Advice - Cloudy Water from scraping carbonate precipitation, is it safe ??

[TheWoos]

Pho: 0.7
Nitrates: 9
ALK: Bad range (was 9.2 before precipitate)
Calc: 440
Mag: 1372

Scraped off a portion of the carbonate precipitation from my "Coral Essentials" ALK (Carbonate) additive and the entire tank is now cloudy and i can't get an ALK reading. Just started with corals and have 14 fish in the tank. I'm concerned that this may affect either the fish or corals in the tank.

Any Advice on whether i should add vinegar or other or just leave it ??

Edit: PH jumped to 8.94 but has come back to 8.4 now, typically 8.1-8.3

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Where exactly did you scrape?

Calcium carbonate won’t hurt anything, and won’t raise pH, but if it was a lot of sodium carbonate dried on tubing, that would raise pH and alk.

 

[TheWoos]

It was the precipitation from the ALK line on the glass, the PH raised for about an hour or so but seems to have dropped back to normal. have no idea what the Alk level is since APEX is giving me a "BAD ALK Range".

Ill move my dosing lines to the return chamber for better flow but im worried about short term damage ?

With the current setup i have Calcium, the Alk then Magnesium dosing but it isnt a high flow area (which i will address). The precipitation is directly under the ALK line but it may contain calcium since that line feeds before the ALK ?

EDIT: Just got a new ALK read at 12.74 DKH via APEX, went up 3.5 DKH...... Foxface(only fish i can see) looks very stressed

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If the water is cloudy the alk will read false high as the calcium carbonate dissolves in the test and acts as if it was dissolved in the water.

 

[TheWoos]

Thanks for your help mate, im a newbie and even i know who you are !!! Appreciate you taking the time to reply

So nothing to worry about ?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The pH is presumably coming down?

 

[TheWoos]

Yes it is, back down to 8.23. Will do a 20% Water change to help it along

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Everything is likely ok now.

 

[TheWoos]

Thank you

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You're welcome.

Let us know if anything seems to go south again.