My first reefing heart attack

[daveisrael]

A little friday story for you people bored at work.

So.....I recently finished my DIY kalk reactor to get rid of my 35 gallon kalk resevoir that I was using before. I have to say that it turned out great, a regular piece of artwork (for me). The reactor finally got done curing so I proceeded to hook it up. I had it mixing for approx. 1/2 hour 4 times a day and dosing through a peristaltic pump programmed to pump water for 15 min. every 2 hours (this equals my current evap. rate). So I set the reactor up, check it for the first 4 hours and then decide that everything was running great......no problems......so I head off to bed. Well I wake up the next morning (day before yesterday) and check on the tank on the way out the door to work. Well my tank looks like a glass of milk. I mean I couldn't even see one coral or fish in the tank! Needless to say my heart actually stopped for a good 10-15 seconds before panic set in. I called off work (the tank obviously comes before work) to try and fix things as best as I could.

From what I could tell, my kalk mixing pump timer was set for daylight savings time while my peristaltic pump timer was not so the mixing pump kicked on at the same time as the peristaltic and pumped kalk slurry for 15 min. probably 4 times during the night causing an extreme cacium/alk snowstorm. The alk dropped to about 3 DKH (normally 9-10) and the pH was about 8.5 (normally 7.9-8.1). After realizing that there was not much I could do besides wait it out and then adjust Ca & alk I set back and waited. Well I'm going on my third day, parameters are back in check....and amazingly enough everything seems fine....not one SPS loosing tissue yet or even looking stressed.

So........daylight savings time (and my stupidity) almost cost me my tank. Who says those Hoosiers are smarter with their anti-daylight savings time.

[cadams]

well .. at least yoyu can laught about it now :lol:

glad everything is ok.

[prance1520]

That has to be awful scary. Glad everything turned out ok. From what I've read and seen, corals normally don't mind a pH of 8.5 even if its not optimal, its liveable. I'm confused why yout dKH dropped, but if everything is normal now, I won't hurt my head thinking about it too much. You do any big water changes, or did you just wait?

Speaking of, I heard indiana is converting to the dark side and taking on daylight savings time. Its about time, I'm sick of having to change my watch every time I go to visit my girlfriends parents.

[daveisrael]

From what I've read and seen, corals normally don't mind a pH of 8.5 even if its not optimal, its liveable. I'm confused why yout dKH dropped

I'm just glad I checked the tank before I went to work, most of the time I'm running too late to even look at it. I'm sure the pH would have went much higher if it had been like that all day. The pH reading was from the morning but I didn't test the alk until later that day when things had cleared up a little (I think the cloudy water would have thrown off a test kit). I think the alk dropped because it all precipitated out during the "storm", at least that's what I read in one of Dr. Randy's posts. I just didn't know if the corals would freak out over a 1/2 pH unit change in 5-6 hours. I guess it didn't bother them too much. My skimmer has been going crazy since it happened though.

I was going to do a water change but I thought it would be better to get the levels back to normal first. After I got the alk back up the pH fell right into place. I'm planning on a water change tonight though....just for good measure.

[prance1520]

Sounds like you handled it really well. I hope I can avoid doing something like that for a while, although I always do stupid stuff when it comes to those things.

[cfishrun]

The Hoosier method is the way to go!

I think Daylight Savings is a waste of time, and daylight. I've been living here for 4 years now and I still cant make sense of it. I think it's more important to have daylight hours in the afternoon/evening than in the morning. Wouldnt you rather drive to work in the dark and still have the sun out when you got home? In the middle of summer it's light out at 9:30, then we "fall back" so that in the winter it starts getting dark out a little after 5:00. It's no wonder the winter is the busiest time of the year for the aquarium trade - there's NOTHING to do outside because it's dark! It'd make more sense to me to "spring forward" in the winter so that it gets dark around 7:00 and what do ya know... if you "fall back" in the summer it'd get dark around 7:30. Better yet, only "spring forward" in the winter so that it'd be dark in the summer at 8:30.

Or, wait... you could just do the simple method like Indiana and not jack around with the clocks at all, making life for everyone a whole lot easier. Then Penza wouldn't have to reset his watch during half of the year, daveisrael wouldn't snowstorm his tank, and Premium Aquatics could offer even better service (as if that's possible) =D

[daveisrael]

I hope I can avoid doing something like that for a while, although I always do stupid stuff when it comes to those things.

Give it some time. If you stay in the hobby long enough the question isn't "if" something bad will happen it's "how bad will it be". It took me almost 8 years for something that bad to happen though so I guess I'm doing alright..........(I say this as I'm knocking on the wooden leg of my chair).

[cfishrun]

Wait... Penza, when you say you manage to do stupid stuff, are you talking about leaving your R/O DI running into your sump for 6 hours? Heh heh

[prance1520]

Haha, here we go. Now I don't wanna make your head explode Fisher, but I heard that they are going to extend daylight savings time a month longer in either direction. So its gonna start a month earlier and end a month later. I heard somewhere its because it saves a couple million dollars a year in electricity or something? Actually, I think I might have heard that from you Aaron, but I could be making stuff up too (I do that a lot). My vote says that all the money Indiana saves by switching to daylight savings should go to premium aquatics to open a second store in columbus :D

[daveisrael]

I think Daylight Savings is a waste of time, and daylight.

I'm not a big fan of daylight savings either. Especially now. I would have to say that it does give me an exscuse to be an hour late to work once a year though. :D

[prance1520]

Haha, thats exactly what I'm talking about. Watching my salinity drop 10 ppt over the course of 6 hours. I'm a goon. Last night my auto top off hose slipped into the sump, and siphoned about 18 gallons into my 13 (already full with around 11) gallon auto top off/ kalk chamber. The cuplrite tube has been wire tied now and the top off chamber drained and refilled, but you get the drift of my stupid little mistakes. Thank God I have a drain in the floor of my fish room.

I will soon be the master at damage control, because we all know that practice makes perfect!

[cfishrun]

Originally posted by prance1520
I heard that they are going to extend daylight savings time a month longer in either direction. So its gonna start a month earlier and end a month later. I heard somewhere its because it saves a couple million dollars a year in electricity or something?

Yeah that was me. Some BS about how it'll save millions of barrels of oil for the cost of public lighting; I dont buy it. But what a joyful day that will be!

[Bcollins111900]

Daylight Savings Time= Extra Golfing Hour.... Blah, rid of daylight savings time. I think a bunch of golfers thought up daylight savings time so they could get an extra hour of golf in.

[Buckeye ME]

I would much rather it be light at 8:30 pm than 5:30 am. Man would that mess with a college kid.

[miaminemo]

if anyone cares, daylight savings time was originally thought up for farmers..

[miketay89]

Reef Farmers? :D

[jakano]

you got lucky dave i did pretty much the same thing and lost the one piece of sps i didnt trade to you. that piece was getting really big too.

[Genetics]

Originally posted by miaminemo
if anyone cares, daylight savings time was originally thought up for farmers..

Umm... I thought it was the farmers who petitioned the government not to go to daylight savings. I believe that it was the Great War that prompted the US government to adopt daylight savings in hopes of curtailing oil use.