No clue what's going on in my tank?!?

[matttvi]

alt="" />

in addition to that (which took about 1 minutes to build up), my anemone is stressed and the water appears slightly murkey.

any ideas?

It appears some type of chemical was added to the tank, the fish appear to be okay though not quite acting normal.

I did a 10% water change and am mixing more salt to perform another one tonight.

thanks,

Matt

 

[chull13]

Were you cleaning near it and could have accidentally gotten some cleaning reagent in there?

 

[george]

Spawning perhaps? Got any kids or vindictive household members who might have accidentally or otherwise put something in the tank?

 

[matttvi]

George;112467 wrote: Spawning perhaps? Got any kids or vindictive household members who might have accidentally or otherwise put something in the tank?

the only spawning event that took place was my clown eggs hatching. i imagine they were a treat for the fish this morning.

I also noticed a huge die off in algae, this strange hair-looking stuff. Very small, nothing like caulerpa...

 

[glxtrix]

you must have put something in your tank....any checmicles, vitamines/aminos or food. I've had that happen to me before but only after I've added aminos. Only thing that stopped it was let the tank run w/o a skimmer for 1-2 full days then start it back up. Or you could do a water change, but if its from aminos, then youre gonna rid some of those. All depends on what you feel like doing.

 

[skriz]

Dont do anything drastic. probably a good idea to either shut down the skimmer or just let it flow through.

 

[matttvi]

glxtrix;112476 wrote: you must have put something in your tank....any checmicles, vitamines/aminos or food. I've had that happen to me before but only after I've added aminos. Only thing that stopped it was let the tank run w/o a skimmer for 1-2 full days then start it back up. Or you could do a water change, but if its from aminos, then youre gonna rid some of those. All depends on what you feel like doing.

I don't know of anything that i've added to the tank. Could the protein spike be due to all the "baby" clowns that were born and likely didn't survive? (don't see any right now)? Seems like it wouldn't do that much.

I'm doing water changes, but I don't want to do too many too quickly.

thanks to everyone for the feedback ,

Matt

 

[gwhiz]

The only time I've seen this happen to mine is when I have added something to the tank. I've had it overflow when the air line got blocked, but it wasn't accompanied by all the foam. You may be able to dial the skimmer way back and get it running, then adjust it back up to normal over the next few days.

 

[darren24]

Not burning any of those oil candles are you?

 

[george]

Aloe from Stress Coat will do that. Anyone put their hands in the tank after using hand lotion or something?

 

[matttvi]

well, here's a quick update...

I'm pretty sure I know what happened:

I purchased a dwarf angelfish not too long ago (centropyge fisheri) and stopped cleaning the algae off my back two walls because the fish likes to graze on it.

With the new algae outcompeting some of the macro algae in the display tank, the macro aglae went sexual and/or died off due to lack of nutrients.

Thus the tank water became cloudy and the skimmer went nuts.

Since I made my first post, I've changed out 70% of my total water volume via 2x 10% changes per day. The water is completely cleared up and the skimmer is behaving normally again.

The best news is that my Anemone looks to have turned the corner. It lost a lot of zooxanthella in its tentacles, but they are inflated again and the critter is expanding like it used too. I'm going to do one more 10% water change later today and try feeding the anemone.

thanks to everyone for the tips and advice,

Matt

 

[matttvi]

for an idea of how bad the anemone got... here are some before and after shots:

before:

alt="" />


after:

alt="" />


but the clowns still love her:

alt="" />

 

[matttvi]

here's what the anemone looks like today...

alt="" />

 

[stroid]

wow thats quite a difference I am glad things are settling down for you. Good husbandry!

 

[linda lee]

Wow... that 'nem has just about gone full circle.

So the algae was the culprit? Just wondering, because my BTA is bleached and looks like the middle pictures and I thought it was a lighting issue. But now there's plenty of light and the 'nem has moved so that it's in the path of the flow, but still about 6 inches from it and the clown faithfully feeds the anemone. Yet it's still bleached.

This is a 55g holding tank with just a couple of H.O.B. filters with the water running over LR and I'm fighting algae constantly. No macro algae though; just the red stuff.

Any hints on what I could do? I know pristine water quality is critical to anemones, but I can't see to achieve that in my current system.

 

[blind1993]

a magnum is what dakota and i find the best way to clean water.

 

[linda lee]

blind1993;116522 wrote: a magnum is what dakota and i find the best way to clean water.

Thanks ~ we have one of those, but managed to lose one of the parts. I might just have to break down and get another one. Just didnt want to invest any more equipment money into a temporary set-up.

 

[blind1993]

what did you manage to lose? i have some extra parts you can have if i can find them.

 

[cameron]

This looks remarkably similar to the scenario I had recently. A ton of algae was consumed/died off in my tank, my skimmer went nuts (not quite as nuts as yours) and lost a couple acros overnight. Very strange.

 

[linda lee]

blind1993;116524 wrote: what did you manage to lose? i have some extra parts you can have if i can find them.

It's a plastic cylinder that goes in the middle. I think it looks like plastic canvas.