nuked my tank :(

[pallan]

Well i made the ultimate mistake and am now paying the price.
Long story short due to some problems with ATO and kalk stirrer none by there making just my inability to solve them. My tank got a huge dose of Kalk water and im not talking just the clear concentrated water im talking the actual kalk powder mixed in water.
It turned my tank completly white 30+ gallon water change did nothing to the levels and when i could see a fish it was obvious they were in distress. I hand pulled some corals out and they were coated with the white powder
I was able to get 50 gallons of reef water from LFS and 30 gallons of fresh mix from a friend(thanks Guys)
Dilema was what would help the most and hurt them least. a nother huge waterchange or a new start.
due to the powder still being in the tank a water change was not going to help, fish were dying left and right, i made the decision after some discussion with others that the only hope was a fresh start.
I placed 50 gallons of reef water in my old 75 gallon tank. i then proceeded to take water out of my display into a 32 gallon garbage can. i began pulling corals and rock out and swishing them in the garbage can to get as much of the powder off them as i could and then placed in the old 75 gallon tank. i then procedded to sort threw dead fish
AS bad as this sounds i think a 100 percent water change was my only way to have any hope at all. the sand bed and tank were coated in white powder the sump and all equipment were coated. the water was pure milky white the alkalinity was off the charts high. i didnt even bother to test PH
I dont know if i made the right choice but so far it appears i have chosen the lesser of the 2 evils hopefully enough bacteria survived on the rock to fend off any cycle or at least minimze it.
The display and sump are empty, tomorrow im going to clean off all the powder. the sand is all in a 5 gallon bucket been rinsed with salt water as best i could. the fish and corals and live rock are in my old 75 gallon with heater, lights, skimer and a filter running fresh carbon.
ive got 30 gallons of fresh mixed salt brewing in a garbage can.
im gonna get 50 gallons from LFS reef tomorrow. my friend is making me another 30 gallons fresh mixed to have on hand, and im making another 30 gallons RO tonight for mixing and to have on hand for emergancies.
dont know what else to say. of course any ideas welcome but please no bashing whats done is done ive kicked myself all night for this and watched my 5 year old daughter cry as her fish died I should have been more carefull with the kalk but i can not change it. i took my eye off the tank for 10 mins and this is my penance.
Any advice or ideas appreciated. BTW kalk stirrer is most likely going to be gone, calcium reactor may be something ill be looking into if i can save this tank or whats left of it
death toll so far
purple tang
yellow tang
7 chromis
still alive
mandarin
2 clowns
clam
engineer
royal gramma (iffy)
lawnmower blenny
2 brittle stars (Big monsters)
1 blood shrimp
numerous crabs and snails
Corals are all touch and go mushrooms look good, SPS are iffy, Leather is pissed but not looking to bad, zoos are open , frog spawns are open, Green star poylps are closed
Im off to bed, took tomorrow off to deal with this. hope i still have a salt water tank tomorrow and i pray no one else ever makes the same mistake or has an issue like this ever.

 

[bgrae001]

Wow and I thought I had it bad 2 weeks ago when my 2yr old dumped in a years supply of flake food.
I pray that you still have some sanity after this and that what ever you have left survives.
I've survived a total black death plague in my old tank, so I think that you can pull through this. I bought a Copperbanded butterfly and it was sick. it died 2 days after I put it in my tank and took 5 out of 7 fish with it.
here is the link to what happened to mine 2 weeks ago
https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/t/296400/ugh-i-cant-believe-it

 

[digitydash]

wow that sucks sorry to hear.Could of you use your sump on the other tank it would of transfered enough bacteria to minimize your cycle.

 

[ameno]

sorry to hear about your tank, I'm getting ready to set up a kalk stirrer and ATO, Is there anything I should be on the watch for to keep something like this from happening? The pump will only top-off around 3 gal per hour and a PH controler will switch to a fresh water pump if the PH climbs.

 

[pallan]

Originally Posted by ameno
sorry to hear about your tank, I'm getting ready to set up a kalk stirrer and ATO, Is there anything I should be on the watch for to keep something like this from happening? The pump will only top-off around 3 gal per hour and a PH controler will switch to a fresh water pump if the PH climbs.
Well My issue came when my JBJ ATO failed when i came home i noticed this and reset it and went upstairs to change and do a water change. By resetting it it began to top off my tank as it should have all day. During this time my kalk stirrer came on and must have freaked out sending that much water (to top off) at same time as it was stirring sent the kalk to the top of the stirrer and out the output. effectivly dumping a days worth of evaporation top off in the form of Kalk slur into the tank.
Update for the day alls well as can be expected in my makeshift tank some corals look OK mostly soft corals some look really pissed off. I see some poylp extension from Some SPS corals
I know the clowns and engineer and LMB and some crabs and snails are still alive everything else is either hiding or dead.
Got to take care of my kids this AM then im gonna get started cleaning the sump and tank out and start the transfer back
Thanks all for your concern. I just hope my bacteria survied on my Rock so i can minimize a cycle im sure to have with all the die off that has happened or has yet to happen

 

[ameno]

hope all goes well, I know it's gota be discouraging, but you'll recover. I was thinking about that issue if your topping off when the kalk is being stirred, maybe there is a way to have the mixer not mix when it's topping off, I will look at finding a way to do that.
Thanks for the heads up

 

[azfishgal]

That is terrible, but I think you did the right thing with no doubt. I feel bad your 5 year old is hurting. I have two girls 8 and 5 years old, and they adore every fish, coral, and clean up crew in our tank. It's hard on us when something like this happens, but it makes it worse to try and explain it to our kids and sad to see the hurt in their eyes. Use this as a time to maybe re-aquascape or do some changes you were wanting to do, but didn't really want to mess up your tank in the process. Well, now is your chance. Like you said, what's done is done, so move forward and make it even a better tank.

 

[pallan]

Well it is not as bad as i had anticipated. Dont get me wrong its the most horrendous thing with the tank ive been thru but so far the 100 percent waterchange and cleaning appear to have done wonders. I have not lost any more fish then had died the first night, and only 2 coral frags have died so far most of the corals have appeared to bounce back with only minor damage and a couple still look a little ruff but not to bad. I had a small ammonia spike the other day but it appears to be down today getting ready for another water change tomorrow and ill test again before but i think enough bacteria survived in the rock that i am going to be ok.
I can not imagine that the corals and some fish survived. the night it happened it looked like milk it was just solid white could not see more then an inch into the tank. By the time i got the corals and fish into the holding tank they had been in that milky water for at least an hour maybe 2. then they were thrust into a totally diffrent environment (the clean reef water from my LFS) which was chilled by 4-5 degrees lower then my tank. but all in all i figured whatever issue they were going to was better then the issue they were coming from. kind of like when i told a friend i was doing a 30 gallon change on it that night when it was all white (before i decided on the 100 percent change) my friend said you cant use fresh mixed salt it has to age or the ph wont be right, my response was do you think the PH matters at this point it cant be anywhere near right now so whats the diffrence i just need to dilute and dilute now!!!!! i ended up doing that 30 gallon change but then did the 100 percent change anyway as the 30 gallon change did not seem to affect the mess any.
So far ive purchased a new timer so i will never stir as long as it was. Ive hooked up a IV drip type of pump instead of the aqualifter pump i was using. this pump actually stirred the kalk when adding water soit was to powerfull for using a kalk stirrer. with these two fixes i should be safe to resume operation until i can get rid of it when i get a calcium reactor.

 

[jrthomas40]

wow...i thought i had it bad when i had to clean up about 5 gallons of water out of the carpet and move the tank the other day when my return hose come off in the middle of the night....this is the second time i have had to take everything out of the tank and put into my 75g and move the main tank

 

[pallan]

well over a week now since the accident got some pics, sorry was to busy during the accident to get pics but here is one of the tank during cleaning. see all the white gun on the tank

and here is the sump with all the white kalk settled to the bottom it coated everything like that corals, rock etc.....

here is the tank tonight and some other pics from tonight everything seems to be holding its own and ive even seen some growth in some corals. lost two new frags of ora blue tort but thats it so far for corals.