I was away and my nephew happened.

[ros3to]

So to make things short I was away for a whole week and I had asked my nephew to come by to feed my fish and to just make sure my ATO wouldn't run dry, thought it was simple enough but disaster struck, he was shown which water to use, but somehow went out of his way to use things that were "easier" to use.
Those things were about 3/4 gallon of mag mix, (randy's recipe)
And close to 1/2 gallon of alk mix.
I'm assuming these were dumped at the same time in my ato container.
I have just gotten home and have not tested my parameters but I can see a lot of dead coral. My tank is 110g and has only been set up for a year. What is the best possible outcome? What can realistically be done at this point?
Picture of the tank before I left

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

100% water change or put your corals in another tank since it may take a bit to make all that water. I mean you can test and dilute but it will probably be close to a total water change.
Also corals are not dead until algae grows over them....

 

[ros3to]

First Round of tests
Nitrates 46.6
Phosphate 0.46
Alk 9.5
Salinity 1.028
Cal 420
Forgot to mention about of 1/2 gallon of cal mix went in there too. Cal seems to be unaffected though

Still have some pieces that look almost dead in tank hopefully they pull through.
And hopefully death toll has peaked not sure I can handle more
Also lost a 6 line wrasse and my watchman goby is nowhere to be found

 

[ieatbugman]

Im so sorry, will be praying

 

[VintageReefer]

I would be doing a water change. As much as I could get out with the new batch premade, heated, and ready to immediately refill

 

[Dom]

First Round of tests
Nitrates 46.6
Phosphate 0.46
Alk 9.5
Salinity 1.028
Cal 420
Forgot to mention about of 1/2 gallon of cal mix went in there too. Cal seems to be unaffected though

These numbers are not terrible at all. I routinely keep my Calcium in the 450 range and my ALK at around 8.5.

I suspect that something else happened as these numbers are not fatal to corals.

 

[Lavey29]

These numbers are not terrible at all. I routinely keep my Calcium in the 450 range and my ALK at around 8.5.

I suspect that something else happened as these numbers are not fatal to corals.

I agree, from what you described I expected the worse but your numbers are fine. Do a few large water changes, run big bag of carbon.

 

[dschuffert]

Sorry to hear about the issues. I would do a 100% water change if possible.

 

[ros3to]

These numbers are not terrible at all. I routinely keep my Calcium in the 450 range and my ALK at around 8.5.

I suspect that something else happened as these numbers are not fatal to corals.

Yes I agree the numbers do not look horrible at all. Salinity being the only thing of concern but nothing a waterchange won't fix.
Nems look a little stressed but all of them alive.
Lost 1 small clam and the other seems to have lost it's foot somehow.

 

[vetteguy53081]

First Round of tests
Nitrates 46.6
Phosphate 0.46
Alk 9.5
Salinity 1.028
Cal 420
Forgot to mention about of 1/2 gallon of cal mix went in there too. Cal seems to be unaffected though

Still have some pieces that look almost dead in tank hopefully they pull through.
And hopefully death toll has peaked not sure I can handle more
Also lost a 6 line wrasse and my watchman goby is nowhere to be found

Oh no and was hoping not to see this. Is he still your nephew? (just kidding)..... unfortunately you will have to tailor the water back to previous conditions and again so sorry to see.

 

[slythy]

In the past I have always just setup another big plastic storage bin (28g from menards foe $10) filled with rodi. Then just have a pump to pump it into my ato. Using a surge protector switch to turn it on and off. Makes it super simple for people checking.

I have never had luck on vacations. I always have huge alk swings or some other shenanigan happen and I come back to death lol. I feel your pain.

 

[ros3to]

Oh no and was hoping not to see this. Is he still your nephew? (just kidding)..... unfortunately you will have to tailor the water back to previous conditions and again so sorry to see.

Nothing a divorce won't fix lol joking.
My water changes should be done with lower salinity than usual correct?
Any recommendations on what salinity I should mix my water to?

 

[ros3to]

In the past I have always just setup another big plastic storage bin (28g from menards foe $10) filled with rodi. Then just have a pump to pump it into my ato. Using a surge protector switch to turn it on and off. Makes it super simple for people checking.

I have never had luck on vacations. I always have huge alk swings or some other shenanigan happen and I come back to death lol. I feel your pain.

I was so scared to leave for this exact same reason so I tried to automate all the dosing so that all he had to do was fill up the container once, the bucket of clean RO water was literally right infront of my ATO.
But that happened lol

What you mentioned is definitely a good idea and will keep it in mind.

 

[VintageReefer]

My only concern from the numbers would be the elevated nitrate and phosphate, and these can take a lot of water replacement to bring down

How big is the tank? You can fix salinity rather easily by siphoning out a gallon and letting the ato refill with rodi

 

[GlassMunky]

These numbers are not terrible at all. I routinely keep my Calcium in the 450 range and my ALK at around 8.5.

I suspect that something else happened as these numbers are not fatal to corals.

Those numbers are fine but if it was drastically lower before hand like at 6.5 and then jumped to 8.5 in a single dose that would def be noticed

 

[PharmrJohn]

Wow. No Bueno. Looks like you did what YOU were supposed to. But you can always, for a price, get an LFS to come in to make sure all is well. I'm gonna be gone for a month at a time during retirement so I'll be doing what you did with idiot proof dosing, using an LFS and training a camera on the tank to get a visual from afar.

 

[ros3to]

My only concern from the numbers would be the elevated nitrate and phosphate, and these can take a lot of water replacement to bring down

How big is the tank? You can fix salinity rather easily by siphoning out a gallon and letting the ato refill with rodi

110g with a 27g sump
I'm gonna do a series of 20-30g waterchanges the next couple of days in hopes to bring everything down

 

[ros3to]

Those numbers are fine but if it was drastically lower before hand like at 6.5 and then jumped to 8.5 in a single dose that would def be noticed

My alk has been pretty consistent for the past few months hovering at 8.2 -8.3 so It wasn't that big of a jump. My nitrates and phosphates had a big jump, before I left and tested I had about 20ppm on nitrates and .2 on phosphates

 

[ros3to]

Wow. No Bueno. Looks like you did what YOU were supposed to. But you can always, for a price, get an LFS to come in to make sure all is well. I'm gonna be gone for a month at a time during retirement so I'll be doing what you did with idiot proof dosing, using an LFS and training a camera on the tank to get a visual from afar.

I honestly thought about that but I live in a pretty rural area where the nearest decent saltwater shop is about 2 hrs away so that was a little out of the question for me. I thought it was idiot proof but turns out it wasn't lol
Hope all goes well for you though

 

[GlassMunky]

My alk has been pretty consistent for the past few months hovering at 8.2 -8.3 so It wasn't that big of a jump. My nitrates and phosphates had a big jump, before I left and tested I had about 20ppm on nitrates and .2 on phosphates

That doesn’t add up…
If half a gallon of Alk solution went into the tank it would def raise it by a lot more than just 0.3dkh

Was the alk carbonate or bicarbonate? What brand?