Need your thoughts

Hello everyone, something unusual (for my tank anyway) happened this morning. My wife and I went out for breakfast (that's not unusual) and before we left the tanks actinic were on and everything was fine. When we got home about 1 1/2 hours later, the tank is really clouded up (milky white) and the skimmer is foaming excessively. The skimmer is not filling up with spent water like an over reaction it foaming with large foam reminding one of soap bubbles. Alk = 10 dkh, Calc = 460 ppm. Checked for Ammonia and it is 0 ppm. I'm puzzled. Did nothing with the tank in the way of additives or water change. Any thoughts are appreciated.

 

Do you have clams? They will occasionally spawn during the day too.

 

Hi Curt, no, no clams. To follow up a bit, I checked the SG (reaching for anything) and it was up to .029. I keep it at .025 so changed out 5 gal. of water at .015 and got the SG to .025 again. Now, the tank does have a fishy odor. I changed the carbon about about 1 week ago so I doubt it is that. It is puzzling to me since I never had a tank do this in all the 20+ years I have been keeping them. I did google "cloudy aquarium" and it does seem to happen to most everyone. Any more thoughts?

 

Just a thought,the instrutions that came with my bakpac said that one cause for excessive bubbles could be high s/g,maybe your tank reached that level for your skimmer.

 

O.k. I haven't heard/read that but yes, that could explain the skimmer issue but what about the cloudiness and fishy odor?

 

Here's the weird thing. It sounds like a bacteria bloom. However, that is rare on a well-established marine aquarium with live rock, good filtration, etc. I would assume that if you lost a LARGE fish you would have mentioned that. It's not a carbonate snowstorm because those just end on their own. Are you dosing a Carbon source like sugar or vodka?

 

No to all of the above. fish all are alive and well and coral seem to like whatever is going on as they are real full and looking nice. Calc is 460 ppm. Now, after reaching again for something, anything, I checked the mag again (checked it 3 days ago) and it is finally dropping and is at 1350 ppm from 1620 ppm. I had it raised to try and combat what we never established positively but think was turf algae. So, the mag has fallen about 300 ppm in 3 days but can't correlate that to cloudy water and the fishy smell. I changed the carbon like I said a few days ago, is it possible it exhausted that quick for some reason and can it cause cloudy water?

 

I dont think that exhausted carbon would make the tank cloudy.. but anything is possible in this hobby...lol

Is your skimmer in the sump? Meaning, if the collection cup were to overfill with skimmate- would it overflow into the sump/tank water or end up on your floor?

 

Well from talking to LFS buddy, he seems to think something did spawn. My skimmer is in the sump but hadn't overflowed into the sump, the cup was 3/4 full when I caught it. Thanks to all who have responded. Seems odd to me that out of the hundreds of aquarists here, no one has had something like this happen. Oh, well, I'll wait to see if more answer.

 

What do you all think? Spawn, what?