Baking soda = bad?

[asylumdown]

Just an update:

I ditched my straight baking soda dosing solution and replaced it with baking soda that had been baked at 320 degrees for a little over an hour. Sodium carbonate it a heck of a lot less soluble in water than sodium bicarbonate, it turned in to a solid block as soon as I poured it in to the water. It took nearly 20 minutes to dissolve it all.

I also did a water change and added some seachem reef buffer (which I believe is a borate based alkalinity booster), enough to bring my pH up to 8. The decline of my coral colonies appears to have stopped, with one showing marked improvement over the last couple of days.

I'm noticing that the colonies that were hardest hit are acroporas with very similar body and polyp structures, just different colours. I'm thinking they might be more sensitive to pH than the other species I have.

Now I'm going out of town for 4 days, here's hoping all my automation stuff works like it's supposed to and i don't come home to a total disaster.