Remote mystery, possible calc crash?

[jpelzer]

I'm away from my tank, but have a friend checking the tank. Doing this all remotely...

I noticed a pH spike this morning, so he went over. It spiked up to 9.5 in just 10-15 minutes, and has been coming back down to normal over the course of the day (around 8.3). The calc right now is >520, dkh 3, mg 1080.

All I figure I can do is wait for the pH to come back down as the calc is exhausted, and then add buffer to prevent a pH crash... I don't have enough water available to do a giant change.

The question and emergency part of this: Can a regular kalk addition (top off) trigger a rise in pH so dramatic, or did something else fire off? I've looked at every piece that I could find, but there's no smoking gun. No leaks that'd cause a continuous running topoff, no emptied-out kalk reactor. How fast does a calc crash happen?

 

[jgraz]

Is there any chance that Kalk residue from bottom of top off container might have been added? Wold that raise pH

 

[jpelzer]

Is there any chance that Kalk residue from bottom of top off container might have been added? Wold that raise pH

Obviously hard for me to see (I'm in England right now), but the pic I've been sent of the kalk reactor makes it look like it hasn't done any drastic pumping, so it's just the regular saturated solution...

But that isn't a bad theory.

 

[Fish Brain]

Do you have a timer set to mix your Kalk reactor? Did it top off and add Kalk when the reactor was mixing?

 

[Hawkeye]

sounds like a kalk dose....maybe your sensor was moved to where the outflow from the kalk top off is?

 

[TanksNStuff]

I'd ask your friend to check the skimmer's collection cup. If the skimmer went nuts and emptied out a bunch of water from the sump... the ATO could have pumped in extra (kalk dosed) water to keep it level.

Not sure how automated your system is, but if the ATO container gets filled automatically too, you might not notice this happened without seeing if the skimmer went nuts. If you're skimmer overflows into a drain, well then I guess you wouldn't be able to check this either... Just a thought though.

 

[jpelzer]

No skimmer issue... It goes into a skimmate locker that has a sensor to detect overfill.

Kalk reactor has a continuous paddle, so no stirring cycle.

Really scratching my head here. In any case, it seems to have stabilized for the moment. I'll have to do some serious water changes when I'm home this weekend.