!!! 911 Pico emergency - PLease Help!!!

[Jon-Paul]

So I did a water change in my pico and after I finished I notcied I had a bit of water still left in a bucket and accidentyally dumped fresh water and vingear. Luckily it was a very small amount and I caught myself as I was pouring it in. It may have been about 50ml of 50/50 vingear and water. I immediately fired up another bucket of fresh salt water and it is heating now. I plan to do about a 70% water change.

 

Also I tested the PH immediately and it was at or below 7.4 maybe 7.2 and it normally runs at 8.4. I also tested the dKH and it was sitting at about 7.0 from what I can only assume would have been about 9.0.

 

My florida ric seems the most agitated, but other corals are showing signs of stress for sure.

 

WIll I hurt my tank by doing another massive water change righty after I just did a 50%? Is it better than waiting until tomorrow? I have a thing of chemi-pure elite. Should I also run that in my AC70? Please HELP!

[jbb]

I would do 100% change if it were mine.  

And carbon 

[Jon-Paul]

I'm trying to get the water changed as fast as possible so I just figured 8L of water will heat and be ready faster than 12L.

[Grantp611]

8 minutes ago, Jon-Paul said:

I'm trying to get the water changed as fast as possible so I just figured 8L of water will heat and be ready faster than 12L.

If I were you I would wait the extra time to heat the entire volume of water that your tank has, and just do a full 100% water change. Anything less will just dilute the vinegar in the tank more but won’t fully get rid of it. If both the temp and salinity are the same in both your tank water and the new water you shouldn’t have any problem whatsoever

[duderubble]

If you have chlorine remover I would use tap water at the right temp ASAP. 

[Jon-Paul]

Thanks @jbb_00 and @Grantp611 for both of your quick responses.

 

I guess I'll just do a 100% change, and I just retested the PH in the reef and it's now reading about 7.8 so that's a bonus. I think it has to do with my super overpowered refugium and my ton of chaeto. The Ric is still squirming, but the acan oddly seems to be loving it and he has his feeding tents out.

 

I will update after the change.

[duderubble]

And then do another water change with your regular RO/DI or whatever you normally use tomorrow. 

 

You could even just add those last 4 gallons very hot to whatever is mixing now. 

[Jon-Paul]

Just did a retest and PH is back to 8.4 and dKH is at 11.5 after the water change. Corals looking stressed to a degree but overall I think I acted quickly enough to mitigate serious damage.

 

 

 

 

[Christopher Marks]

Glad you were able to mitigate most of the damage @nano-paul! How is everything looking today?

[Jon-Paul]

Everything seems a bit off I would say. Everything isn't quite as extended as they normally are by a little bit, and things were slower to open during lights on. I had a horde of rainbow cloves that was doing super good prior to the vinegar dump that all remained closed except two. Zoas/Acans/Ric/Duncan/Frogspawn were for the most part doing well.

 

I did two small broadcast feedings of reef-roids to help establish some nitrates/phosphates as I figure my water was super clean. Tomorrow I will target feed some mysis/reef-roid soup as well,

 

I appreciate the help of the community to respond quick and help me through what has so far been my biggest scare/dumba$$ mistake to date with the pico haha.🍻