too much baking soda

[kempcottle]

i added baking soda to my tank to try and raise alkilinity/Ph. evidently i over-buffered and now i have baking soda cakign to the walls!!!

i have a stainless steel scarping tool but even that is not getting it to come off easily.

is there anything i can add to make it easy to remove/dissolve this caked on baking soda?


luckily i have not added any fish yet but i do have a few hermit crabs and a shrimo who are not happy!!

 

[Anonymous]

Vinegar?

 

[Anonymous]

I would do a water change for starters...

 

[kempcottle]

i have already changed 3 gallons. its only a 40 gallon salt water so i will probably try to do 2-3 gallons every day or two

what affect will vinegar have on my Ph and my current live residents? (crabs, shrimp, and live rock?)

 

[Kevin1000]

If the aquarium is glass use a razor blade.

 

[ChrisRD]

I agree - try a razor blade

Don't add vinegar to your tank - I think dupaboy was referring to a situation where you're cleaning an empty tank. Vinegar works well when cleaning stuff for our tanks - ie. to dissolve calcareous build-up on pumps, heaters, etc.

 

[ChrisRD]

BTW Kempcottle...

 

[Anonymous]

If razor blade does not work well, do this:

Adding some vinegar to the tank won't hurt too bad, but I guess you may overdose it. Take out the crab and shrimp, and whatever you can remove. Take out 75% of the tank water and put it aside, then add 4-10X as much vinegar as the baking soda in volume to the 25% tank water , and let it sit for a while. Then use your scraping tool and do work on it. When you are done, you need to dump out the water, and put some of the saved water to rinse it.

You will need to get some water to make the saltwater again. Make sure you test the pH before adding any livestock back on again.

 

[kempcottle]

looks like i wil be spending my weekend doing some heavy maintenance.
i am going to drain 75% of my water into a container along with the crabs, shrimp and live rock. the remaining water i will add a minimal amoutn of vinegar to help break down the baking soda. then start scraping.

once i get the tank clean, i need to drain and throw away the water in the tank, right? (since it is now a nice mix of scraped Bakign soda and vinegar). I have about 30 pounds of aragonite sand in the bottom. is there any danger of it retaining some of that vinegar?

then i add back the 75% reserved water and my critters. i will mix up some new salt water to top it off. sound liek a plan?

also, there is a light "dusting" of the BS on my live rock. if i try to lightly scrub them with a brush am i going to harm the live rock? it lready had soem beautiful purple corraline algae built up when i bought it a few weeks ago. now that is considerably "dulled" in color

again - thanks for all the input. luckily, the shrimp and crabs are amazingly resilient an i am trying dilligently to make their new home clean and safe. i want to get everything back to normal before i even think about adding the first damsel or clown

 

[Kevin1000]

The caked baking soda is simply a buffer and won't hurt anything in your tank - you can scrap the unsightly stuff of the glass with a razor and leave it in the tank.

Vinagar is a mild acid and will lower the PH in your tank.

 

[Anonymous]

Part of the 75% saved water is for rinsing out the tank. The more rinse you do, the safer it will be on the pH. You probably ended up with less than half of your water. Again, try to use the razor blade to see if it can get the stuff off.

Did not consider the live sand when I type above. Remove them out as much as you can. They will dissolve slightly when you add the vinegar, so you should take them out if possible.

As for the dusting on the rock, they will disappear gradually when you put them back. Since you have to remove the sand, the water going to be very cloudy for a few days. The critters won't mind about the cloudiness, but it won't be a good tank to look at for a week or so. You may need to blast off the sand dust when things settled.

 

[Mihai]

Man, that sounds like a lot of work (plus the chance to mess-up). If I were you, I'd just scrape the glass and wait for the corralines to come back on the rocks (and keep doing 10% changes daily for a week). But that would be me.
M.

 

[ChrisRD]

Personally, I would just scrape the glass and enjoy the weekend...

 

[kempcottle]

maybe i will just remove some water, all the critters and rock so i can do soem heavy duty scraping. scrape off as much as i can and then add everything back...

i will skip the vinegar and leave the sand intact to keep it from getting too messy

 

[ChrisRD]

You can scrape with everything in the tank - it won't cause any harm...

 

[Anonymous]

I agree with Chris!
And, smaller water changes are not really that helpful for dilution because the new water gets contaminated as well, then you have to dilute it. Also with smaller water changes it will take you many more water changes to dilute the same amount a 50% change would do.
There is an article about it somewhere, but I can't find it.

 

[Anonymous]

>...If razor blade does not work well,...

>... Again, try to use the razor blade to see if it can get the stuff off.

Glad that Chris and Righty agrees with me.

 

[kempcottle]

i had been using a brand new stainless steel scraping tool that was not workign well at all.
sunday, i removed my livestock and 90% of the water and went to work with a razor blade. al the caked baking soda came off with a little effort. put most of the water back and topped off with five gallons of new salt water. replaced my livestock and everybody looks happy with the new clear water and glass

i am going to do soem testing today for alkilinty/ph

thanks to everyone who replied to my post.

 

[z rock]

How much baking soda did you add?Sounds like average salt tank build up.I'd stick with a normal cleaning routine of 50% water changes and a razor blade.
If you tear the tank down and remove animals everytime you have some mineral deposits your gonna be goin NUTS!