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Travis View Drop Down
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Joined: September 23 2003
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    Posted: March 29 2004 at 9:32am
Yesterday my auto kalk system messed up and dumped 5 extra gallons of kalk solution in my tank.  The PH peaked at 8.7.  A couple hours later the PH was down to 8.2, alk 11.6dKH and calcium 400ppm.  It took all night for the cloudy water to clear up and this morning there is a white dust all over everything.  Any idea what the white dust is?  I plan to do a 20% water change tonight, any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
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tomason View Drop Down
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Points: 137 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote tomason Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 29 2004 at 10:21am
The white dust is calcium carbonate that precipitated out of the water because it got too concentrated. Your alk, pH, and calcium are all good, so it probably already fixed itself and so there's no need for a water change. The clean up crew will eventually clean up all the dust.

That happened to me last year, only it was from overdosing B-Ionic. My cloudy water lasted a couple weeks, so already things are going better for you.

-Tom
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Joined: March 06 2003
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Recheck the alk now that the water has cleared.

Ditto on Tom's comments.  Although, imo, a water change won't hurt anything and may replenish compounds that might have co-precipitated with the calcium.  I'd scrape the white film off with a razor (just so I could see into the tank).
Jon

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Travis View Drop Down
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Points: 621 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Travis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 29 2004 at 12:02pm
Thanks guys.  I retested over lunch and got... 10.8dKH, 400ppm calcium & 1320 mag.  I'm assuming most of the precipitation happened in the sump sense I didn't loose that much calcium and magnesium.  I'll do the water change anyway...  I'm about do for a good water change.  Scared me to death, hopefully the corals will be ok.
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Travis View Drop Down
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Joined: September 23 2003
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Points: 621 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Travis Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 29 2004 at 12:04pm
BTW, I've read it looks like snow... to me it looked like thick white smoke...
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