Too much foam and too much stank!!

Tank has been running for a couple weeks and today I took out my old lace rock for some nice new pukani from BRS!



HOWEVER, the tank stinks like mad and my sump is starting to overflow from foam! I can't even run my skimmer cause it goes crazy and fills the cup in about 3 seconds, even with it turned as far "down" as I can get.



Is the smell and the foam related? Is this part of the cycle? There was plenty of old organic matter on the rocks but they didn't smell dry and now only 8 hours later it smells strong!

 

Yes. This is just from all of the die-off on the rocks. This die-off is also creating Ammonia and starting off the initial cycle. BTW, use your imagination what it smells like when you bring in a couple thousand pounds of LR for resale. LOL

 

+1 to the die off and + a whole lot more to the stank ! I think we all know that smell, couple thousand pounds per clip ? eeshh, I suppose I would have to liken that to strolling by the bay and stepping over dead rotting fish only to piss off the seagull’s who's nasty snack was interrupted .....

Edit:
Just read your other thread, you are using Marcos Sand and your other thread said it stirs up and clouds the water -- did you rinse this sand? There are finer particles that suspend in the water and cloud it and will contribute to your foam issue. What is your PH ? – low PH causes the calcium carbonate (marcos sand) to break down and this can cloud the water.

 

LOL John! Luckily it was in the QT warehouse. I only had to smell it when feeding the fish or going through to the dry goods warehouse. It was funny in there during the winter.....it actually rained indoors. The water would evaporate and then hit the cold metal ceiling and then rain back down.

 

I hoped that it was from the die off, but figured it would take longer than only half a day to start smelling.

I didn't rinse the sand. I had read in a few threads that this stuff was desirable because it contains some good stuff and while it will take longer to settle, it will eventually be mixed in with the sand and clear up just fine. I've actually churned it up MUCH worse than this, enough to look like milk, and it never made foam or supercharged the output of my skimmer before.

Just checked my PH and it's right around 8.0. I put some 8.2 buffer in to raise it up a little.

 

I was just thinking, I added about 5tsp of GFO in a filter sock in the second baffle sometime yesterday. Could this have caused any foaming problems??

This was no foam this morning, but I moved some rocks around that stirred up a little sand and when I just got home there is a TON of foam in the sump around the skimmer. My skimmer was still going crazy this morning even when there was little foam in the sump.

At this point it's either the GFO, small mesh filter sock from petsmart or the large amount of pukani rock.